


Birds of a Feather

by kyrrhe



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Asgard is full of jerks, Asgardian judicial bureaucracy, Clint Barton is Robin Hood, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Loki Redemption, Loki is at fault for some things, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Nick Fury Can Be Reasonable, Protective Avengers, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Space Viking Science, Suicidal Thoughts, Thor never paid attention in school, a soul is a many colored thing, but not others, definitely more angst as we go, more angst as we go, sort of, soulbonds with functionality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-02
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-17 21:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 64,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5885683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrrhe/pseuds/kyrrhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A soulmate is literally someone who shares part of your soul. They're not decreed by fate but made by interaction and shared experiences, forming when two people gain a deep intuitive understanding of the other. Soldiers usually come home with several new soulmates. Twins, old friends, and couples are other common examples. </p><p>When the Avengers found themselves soulmates after the invasion of New York, it was unexpected but not surprising. What was surprising was discovering Clint was bonded to Loki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Discoveries Are Made (And Not Appreciated)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here is my two bits in the soulmate trope.
> 
> This was an experiment for me with an omniscient POV. I'm not entirely happy with it, but eh. If you have any thoughts or comments on it, please feel free to let me know! 
> 
> I have no beta for this, so any and all mistakes are completely my own.

“What the hell! What just happened?” Tony demanded from his prone position on the rubble-strewn street. “Please tell me nobody kissed me.”

Hulk actually almost seemed to laugh. 

Natasha’s voice crackled over the comms from her position atop Stark Tower. “Clint? Mind explaining why I know you pulled your shoulder doing some ridiculous stunt?”

“Uh…cause I did?”

“Romanoff?” Steve asked, blinking. “Do you have burns on your hands?”

Tony stared up at Hulk. “Oh my god. Guysguys _guys_. Lookit!” He pointed a gauntleted hand at the Hulk’s bare left arm, where black ink marched in a neat column up the inside of his wrist, spelling out all their names and what could only be assumed to be Thor’s, written as it was in runes. “We’re fucking _soulmates.”_

Steve didn’t even register the language, he was so shocked. Hulk scratched at the words idly then shrugged when they didn’t come off. 

Thor’s face lit into a fluorescent grin.

“We’ll talk about this later, boys,” Natasha promised. “First we have a rampaging god to capture.”

“Right, right,” Tony muttered. He lifted his arms. “Hand up, anyone?”

Steve took one hand, Thor the other, and together they hauled Iron Man to his feet. The group waited for Clint to limp over to the Tower before taking the elevator up as Natasha took one down, holding the scepter like it was a symbol of office. 

Clint gave her a wide berth.

Loki was flippant at them but, strangely, perfectly willing to cooperate. They handed him off to SHIELD at the helipad as soon as the agents showed up and retreated back to Tony’s trashed living room before anything else could be demanded of them. Tony paused by the elevator, hands on hips, staring morosely at the shattered window, cratered floor, and assorted debris. 

“This place was only just finished last Tuesday. I only got to use that bar twice. And I didn’t get to finish either of those drinks!”

“We bleed for you, Tony,” Natasha said as she flopped onto the couch, rotating a shoulder, the fledgling soulbond tinting with her exhaustion. “We really do.”

Tony threw her a look, then stepped out of the suit and clapped his hands together, striding purposefully toward the bar that had—thankfully—remained untouched. “Alright, who wants a cocktail? I myself will be drinking scotch. Neat. In large quantities and with great abandon.”

“I believe I will as well,” Thor said, taking a seat at the bar, setting Mjolnir down on it with a slight thump. “I look forward to trying your Midgardian alcohol. I’m curious how it compares to that of Asgard.”

Tony looked up at him from where he was gathering glasses. “Ooh, is that a challenge, big guy?”

Thor just grinned at him. Tony cackled gleefully and started gathering bottles. 

“Bloody Mary,” Natasha ordered, resting her head on the back of the couch and closing her eyes.

“Nothing for me, thanks,” Bruce said as he slipped into the room; he had stayed behind in the hallway when he’d started to transition back. Tying ragged ends of his pants together in lieu of the belt he had lost somewhere, he collapsed onto the stool beside Thor. 

“You sure? I have cranberry juice, pomegranate. Meant for cocktails, really, but perfectly”—Tony shuddered—“healthy on their own, I’m sure.”

Bruce nodded once in pensive agreement. 

Clint flopped down beside Natasha on the couch. “Just a beer for me, something dark and bitter as your heart, Tony.”

“Hey! I resent that remark. I’ll have you know my heart is full of light and little bunnies, just look at my chest. It’s glowing with purity.”

“And cold,” Clint added, slouching bonelessly. “Warm beer is blasphemy.”

A cough drew all their attention to Steve, who shuffled slightly in place. He glanced up at them with a short, shy smile. “So…soulmates?”

His warmth and quiet joy radiated down the bonds to them all like sunlight, making them blink. Understanding flashed across Natasha’s face. “Your first?”

He blushed. Captain America actually blushed, ducking his head a little, shuffling even more in place. 

“Aw, Capislce,” Tony said, pushing a very full glass toward Thor, “that’s almost adorable.”

Clint snorted. “Almost?”

“Adorable is not in my personal lexicon. ‘Gorgeous’, sure. ‘Bodacious’, yes. ‘Rocking hot’, of course—”

Clint cut him off with another derisive snort. 

Thor downed the glass in one go and sat for a moment, considering. A smile broke across his face. “This is most excellent. A--!” He thought the better of whatever he had been about to do and simply pushed his glass in a silent request back to Tony, who frowned at it like it had misbehaved. Thor turned to Steve. “I do not understand. How can such a competent and honorable warrior come to be without bonded shield-mates?”

Steve shrugged as he sat down at the last bar stool. “Not many empathize with a skinny kid constantly in and out of hospitals. Sure, they feel bad for you, but it’s just a vague pity. It’s not real understanding, the kind that gets you a soulbond.”

“The Howling Commandos?” Clint asked, catching the cold bottle of Russian Imperial stout Tony threw at him. 

Natasha opened her eyes to glare at Tony.

“Come over here and get it yourself, Itsy Bitsy. I’m not your nanny.”

She huffed but levered herself off the couch to slink over to the bar, snagging the glass Tony slid down to her with eager fingers.

Steve shrugged again, accepting a glass of cranberry juice similar to the one before Bruce. “We never quite clicked that way.” Something dark and sad slithered on the bonds for a moment, but no one pushed. He glanced at the other team members curiously. “How many do you all have?”

“I myself boast four,” Thor said proudly, his bond practically shining. He snapped open his vambrace to display the names inscribed at the top of his wrist, right above their names—which none of the Avengers could read as the four names were all written in runes. Tony rolled his eyes, muttering about Space Vikings. “They are my bonded shield-mates. I have known them nearly all my life, though I have only been bonded to them for four centuries.”

Tony’s muttering got louder. Bruce looked slightly pained as he squinted at Thor. 

“I’ve got two,” Clint volunteered. “Nat and—” He broke off abruptly. Bleak sorrow shocked through the bonds before he clamped down on it. Natasha laid a hand on Clint’s shoulder while he took a large pull on his beer. 

“Same,” she said, meeting their eyes.

Steve nodded, looking away. He had liked the agent, would have liked the chance to get to know him better—even if it had been a little weird at first with the whole watching-him-sleep thing. 

He glanced at Bruce speculatively. The scientist gave him a weary smile and shook his head. “One. A childhood friend. They died in a car crash a year before…” His eyes took on a haunted look as the memories swam back up: blood on the cement, the prickling pain as parts of his soul suddenly asphyxiated, _“My condolences, Dr. Banner. My name is Henry and I’m here to help”_ —he took his glasses off his nose and studiously cleaned them. “Well, you’re all the first I’ve had since.”

“While I would love to join the pity party here—I’m all about parties, I’m the life of them—I have to say I have had the fortune of having two, pains in the asses though they are.” Tony splashed a very, very generous serving of scotch into his glass. His bond swirled with half-defined emotion. “Now I’m just two shy of a baseball team, with all you nuttos.”

“God help us all,” Natasha muttered into her drink.

Clint clinked his bottle to her glass. “Amen.”

“Snits.” Tony took a gulp of scotch. He swirled the amber liquid around the glass for a moment. “So. This is awkward.” At the rest of their looks, he gestured at the group with his glass. “Not to paraphrase the Cap or anything, but, soulmates? I’ve known you all for what, two days? I didn’t even meet you, raptor boy, till a few hours ago.”

Bruce ran a hand through his hair. “That’s true. Trauma-born bonds usually take a few weeks to a month to form, depending on the situation. The shortest bond period I personally know of was a kidnap case, and they were in captivity for nine days.”

“If it makes you happier, not even SHIELD thought it would happen this fast,” Natasha offered, chewing in a disturbing manner on her celery stick. 

“So what makes us different?” Tony asked. He made grabby motions with his fingers. “Give me data, people. I can’t work without all the variables. Gives me hives. Thor, is this bond period normal for you?”

“In my travels, I have found that the period a bond takes to form depends on the lifespan of the beings forming it. On Asgard, it is no difficulty to live to five thousand, so soulbonds tend to need many centuries to form. It is much the same for Alfheim and Svartalfheim, though I have heard that bonds on Muspelheim can take merely a few days. I do not pretend to be a scholar, so I have little knowledge or understanding of why this is so.”

Steve was impressed. Thor had actually managed to make Tony—genius billionaire playboy philanthropist—speechless with a dazed, wonderfully bewildered look on his face. Even his bond couldn’t quite decide what to think. Little spurts of emotion would flare only to die under the next one, vacillating between a hundred points. 

“Okay,” the engineer finally said after several minutes of silence in which each Avenger watched in fascinated amusement. “Okay. Right. The big guy is not the new data point. Right. Any other ideas? The supersoldier serum?”

“Even if that is the catalyst, there’s no way to test that hypothesis,” Bruce replied. 

Tony grimaced. “Ridiculous amount of combat adrenaline?”

“The average bond period in the military is half a service tour, with exceptions for the more active postings. There’s no data on any bonds in the more specialized combat teams as they’re all classified.”

“I could hack the Pentagon,” Tony offered. 

His bond was deadly serious. 

Clint pointed at him with his beer bottle. “You are the weirdest motherfucker. I think I like you.”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tony, please, let’s…I know we dug through SHIELD’s files, but, just…let’s try to stay on the side of the law this time? Please? I’d rather not antagonize the military anymore.”

“Fine, fine.” Tony took another swig of scotch. “Magical space portal interference?”

“Again, Tony, there’s no data and there’s no way to acquire any.”

“Look,” Steve said, stepping in before Tony and Bruce could get into a real huff, “the way I understood it was that you became soulmates with people you got to know very well. I know that’s supposed to take a lot of time, but during the War, sometimes the only people who understood you were other soldiers, even if they were complete strangers. Could it be something like that?”

The two scientists looked at him, Bruce with a speculative eye, Tony with an incredulous one. 

“That…would actually make sense,” Bruce said, resettling his glasses.

“What, because we fought the first aliens Earth has had contact with?” Tony demanded, wry amusement ruffling across his bond. “Then why aren’t we soulmates with all those normal, everyday police officers and National Guardsmen? Jesus Christ, why isn’t the whole city soulmates then?”

“Look, Tony, soulology is hardly a perfect science. We know no more about how bonds work than we do about dark matter—”

“Another thing I hate,” Tony muttered into his scotch.

“—so how about we turn to the stuff we can measure, like the type of bond we have and its properties. We hardly have a normal one.”

Thor frowned thoughtfully. “What is a ‘normal’ bond for mortals?”

“General surface mind-link,” Natasha replied. “Capable of basic empathy, general location sensing, the ability to determine physical condition if the bond’s concentrated on for an appropriate time interval.”

“Whereas ours are distressingly clear,” Bruce added. “We knew of each others’ injuries without even having to think about it.”

“Which brings up another important question.” Clint tossed his empty bottle into the trash with perfect aim. “Nat and I have bond training courtesy of SHIELD, but do any of you?”

Steve furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Like, could you block your bond if you needed to? Can you push the other bonds to the back of your awareness? This is kinda important. We’ve all got five or more now, and we’re going to be on the same missions for the most part. That’s a lot of information to have to process constantly or even ignore outright if we’re going covert. Obviously, Cap, I know you don’t, but Thor, I have no idea how bonds work in Viking-land.” 

“They are not too dissimilar from your own, friend Clint. Worry not, I know how to rein them in should the need arise.”

“Pep and Rhodey forced me,” Tony admitted with a shrug. “They didn’t want any ‘leakage’, to use Pepper’s exact phrasing. Apparently they disapprove of some of my activities.”

Natasha fiddled with one of her knives. “I trust you’ll continue to block your ‘activities’, Mr. Stark.”

Tony saluted her.

“Bruce?” Clint asked. 

The scientist shook his head. “Never needed to.”

“We can teach you and Cap the basics then,” Natasha said. “It’s not too different from the meditation techniques you’ve been utilizing.” She eyed him speculatively. “Dr. Banner, what would you say the chances are of the bond being able to calm the big guy down?”

Bruce’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Again, I have no data, and I’m very behind on bond theory—hard to acquire the literature while still keeping a low profile—so there’s not much I can say besides that being a good idea to look into.”

“Actually,” Steve said, “I can see this coming in very handy on missions. It’s much easier to keep track of you all this way.”

“Excuse you, Capsicle, it’s not like we’re a bunch of kids in Wonka’s factory here.”

Steve blinked at him. 

Tony pointed a finger at him. “Movie nights. We are so doing movie nights. Know what? Let’s start now. JARVIS, order up some shawarma from that place down the street. It’s not wrecked, I checked.”

_“At once, sir,”_ JARVIS said. _“And may I add that Director Fury is on the line.”_

“I’d praise you for stalling him, but you also haven’t gotten rid of him so I’m kinda on the fence here.”

_“He says the matter is urgent.”_

“We just saved the city from an alien invasion with a nuke. What could possibly be urgent right now?”

_“It appears to concern your soulbonds, sir.”_

Tony glared at the two super spies. “You told him? Already?”

Natasha shrugged, while Clint snorted. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out, tin head,” he said. 

“Put him on,” Steve said.

“Ah come on, Cap,” Tony whined. He finished off his scotch as JARVIS connected the line.

“I’m looking for Agent Barton,” Fury’s voice boomed out of the speakers. Clint groaned and sat up. 

“Here, boss.”

“Agent Barton…” All the Avengers straightened at his tone. Fury sounded almost…concerned. Apprehensive even. Unease started to trickle through the bonds from all sides. “Agent Barton, have you created any new soulbonds?”

Clint furrowed his brow, glanced around the room before responding. “Yeah? All the Avengers. I thought SHIELD was prepared for that.”

“Agent Barton, Loki has your name on his wrist.”

No one said a word as horror bloomed across Clint’s face and his bond. Swearing a blue streak, he scrambled for his arm guard, fingers fumbling with the buckles. The list of the Avengers’ names spilled out from underneath it, so he hadn’t bothered to actually check. Natasha batted his hands away and undid it for him. He stared at his wrist, then his bond went cold and blank as he threw up blocks. 

Steve shifted in his stool. “Clint?”

He mutely flashed them his wrist. There were two names written in runes on it, one down below with all of their names, and one at the top beneath Natasha’s.

“Well shit,” Tony said.

“I don’t understand,” Steve said. “I thought the forced soulbonds were supposed to disappear with the end of the mind-control. That’s what happened to Dr. Selvig and all the other people Loki took.”

“Well, this one didn’t. Agent Barton, you’re staying after the debrief to get re-examined. Tomorrow, 0800.”

Clint mumbled a “Yes, sir,” and the line went dead.

Natasha shifted her weight. “I can kill him for you.”

Thor took care to keep his bond silent. It had taken time, yes, but he now knew when to press and when to hold his peace. He knew these warriors; they were fighters but they were not cruel nor hardened after centuries of violence and pain like some from the other realms. They would make no rash decision this night.

Clint jumped up from the couch and paced around the living room, muttering. “Shit. Shit shitshit. How the hell, how the fuck did this happen? I thought the bastard was—” He halted abruptly before the window. “Oh my god.”

When he said nothing further, Natasha shifted again. “Clint.”

He turned toward them without seeing them, too focused in his own head for anything else. “I could feel him. During the battle, but I thought it was just echoes, what with…with Coulson…Nat, I don’t _want_ to be soulmates with that—!” The very idea made him want to vomit. 

Tony, Steve, and Bruce glanced at Thor. He shook his head slightly at them, though he was happy for their concern. Steve nodded while the scientists looked vaguely impressed. 

“Not to sound too much like a broken record here, but what we need is data,” Tony said.

“Why?” Natasha asked.

“Well, we can’t just come up on a plan without knowing the field, can we, Miss Super Spy?”

That stopped Clint for a second. “We?”

“Yeah. We.” Tony returned the stare. “We’re the Avengers, who happen to be soulmates—however ridiculous that event is—and one of us happens to be non-consensually bonded to our first supervillain. That kinda makes it our business.”

Both Natasha and Steve raised an eyebrow at him for that.

“Shut up. I perform when I feel like it, not when Fury tells me to. Especially when he rejected me before it turned out I was necessary to world salvation. Besides, you’re all mine now, like it or not. Nobody touches my stuff.”

Natasha wondered if she should feel offense at that remark—Steve certainly had tinges on his bond, and Bruce wasn’t particularly _happy_ with the sentiment, while Thor just seemed to think it was amusing—but at the moment, she couldn’t quite muster up the energy to care. Clint took priority, and if Tony Stark was willing to throw his resources at them, she wasn’t going to argue. 

“We’ll need to interrogate him,” she said. “You, Clint, will obviously have to talk to him, but not until I’m done.”

“Nat—”

She gave him her best unimpressed stare. He let it drop. She let a spark of affection run down their bond. Clint blinked at her, then his shoulders slumped with a sigh as he let most of the tension go. 

“I’ll have JARVIS record everything. I don’t trust SHIELD to do it properly.”

Bruce shook his head. “I’d almost call you paranoid, Tony.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Really, kettle? Really?”

“I said almost.”

At that moment, JARVIS informed them that the shawarma had been delivered to the lobby and how did sir want to deal with getting it to the penthouse as most of the employees had fled the building? Clint ignored the rest of the team’s rock, paper, scissors to see who would play gopher, rubbing his hands over his face until he thought he could manage his spy mask. This was not what he had had planned when he had settled into his nest another world ago. That bastard had a lot to answer for.

Tomorrow, he promised himself, grasping at the fleeting normalcy of his teammates’ bonds. Tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, thoughts on POV? Good? Bad? Middling?
> 
> I know there was next to no plot in this chapter but this was just such a natural ending point and the next chapter has A LOT of stuff in it. I'm halfway through it so it'll get posted soon(ish).


	2. In Which Many Questions Are Asked (of People Who Don't Particularly Want to Answer)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the chapter title said

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had a great deal of fun researching for this chapter (CAUSE I APPARENTLY HAVE TO KNOW ALL THE DETAILS OF EVERY LITTLE STEP IN THE PLOT *EVEN* IF IT DOESN'T END UP IN THE FINAL DRAFT). I found some very entertaining stuff. Vikings had awesome insults. And I am so glad my mother has a medical background.
> 
> Thank you all so much for your support and interest!

Despite the exhaustion that had eventually made even thinking difficult, Steve woke with the sun the next morning, blinking at the unfamiliar skyline through the frankly ridiculous window. It took him a moment to place the room. He groaned and turned to face the wall. Maybe if he went back to sleep he could pretend he was on vacation in a really _really_ nice hotel.

 _“Good morning, Captain Rogers,”_ JARVIS said, making him jump. _“It is currently 6:00 am. I have been asked by Agent Romanoff to remind everyone that there is a SHIELD debrief in two hours.”_

“Good morning,” Steve mumbled back. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Is anyone else awake?”

_“Agent Romanoff is in the kitchen. She has ordered alarms for the rest of the team.”_

Said alarms instantly went off in the rest of the guest rooms and surprise flashed down three of Steve’s new bonds—soulbonds, he had _soulbonds_ —before a crash silenced one of them. 

Steve jerked into a sitting position, eyes frantically scanning for debris or smoke.

_“I apologize, Captain Rogers. It seems Mr. Thor’s familiarity with our world does not extend to alarm clocks.”_

He chuckled weakly for lack of any other appropriate reaction and slid out of bed to amble to the kitchen for breakfast. Natasha was at the stove cracking eggs into a pan. She greeted him with a nod and nodded at a black monstrosity of a machine squatting on the counter. “Coffee’s ready if you want some.” Her bond hummed calm, cool, and competent in his mind.

“How long have you been up?” he asked as he helped himself to a cup. 

She shrugged. “Hour or so. Someone needed to start breakfast and it wasn’t going to be any of those lazy bags of bones.” She pointed with a spatula to the hallway where Bruce and Clint were emerging blurry-eyed.

Clint squinted with a frown at Natasha. “Six am, Nat? Really? _Really?”_

“Sit and eat.”

She deposited a plate of eggs before both him and Bruce as Thor joined them, muttering about Midgardian sorcery and the bowels of dragons. 

Steve sipped his coffee, then frowned. There was still one alarm going off at the back of the penthouse. Five minutes later it was joined by a second, this one even more obnoxious and at a much higher volume.

“And that would be why,” Natasha said, bond smug as they all sat down to eat.

While they were passing around toast, butter, and salt shaker, a third alarm joined the cacophony.

Thankfully the alarms from hell shut off barely a minute later and Tony, eyes hardly open and hair sticking in all directions, shuffled into the kitchen and straight for the coffeemaker. He downed one mug without seeming to breathe, then filled a second and turned, blinking at them, his bond just starting to emerge from lethargy.

He glared at Natasha over the rim of his coffee mug. “Remind me again why I ever let you near Pepper.”

“I don’t think you had anything to do with it,” Natasha replied. She pointed her fork at the lone empty seat. “Sit and eat.”

“I don’t see why this couldn’t have waited. It’s not like we’re going to be battling New York rush hour to get to the helicarrier.” The engineer did sit down though.

“No, we just have to suit up, request and wait for a SHIELD quinjet as Loki destroyed our last one, get to the helicarrier and go through security. I’m sure we could have accomplished all that in half an hour.” She flashed Tony her teeth.

Clint thumped his head on the table beside his plate. “I hate after missions.”

Natasha patted his arm but her bond betrayed little sympathy.

_“I’ll just send in that request, shall I, Agent Romanoff?”_

“Thank you, JARVIS. I appreciate all your help this morning.”

_“Any time, Agent Romanoff.”_

“I do not need you corrupting my AI, Itsy Bitsy.”

“Ah, if I may?” Bruce interrupted. Steve shot him a grateful smile, which the scientist returned briefly before continuing. “Do we have a plan for all this? Like what we’re going to do once we’re done with the debrief?”

Clint stuffed a piece of toast into his mouth. “What’s there to plan? We go debrief, I endure being prodded, and then we pump Loki for any and every scrap of information in that diabolical brain of his.”

“Like I said, I’ll have JARVIS record everything for full analysis later.” Tony already had his phone out as he drizzled ketchup over his eggs. Steve thought he’d hidden his reaction but Tony glanced up anyway. He really needed to get Natasha to teach him how to block. “Got a problem there, Capsicle? No one ever tell you ketchup is a condiment that goes on everything, including and especially breakfast food? You should never play poker. Scratch that—play poker with me.”

“Eat,” Natasha ordered.

Tony rolled his eyes and took a stab at his eggs.

“I would like to request the first interview with Loki,” Thor said. 

Steve nodded. “Seems fair. Any objections?” None came. “Alright, anyone else want to interrogate Loki? Obviously, agents, I realize you want to, but Tony, Bruce, do you want a shot?”

Bruce shook his head while Tony put on a thoughtful look. “Sure, Cap, I usually have a little alcohol with breakfast—particularly when I’m about to spend the day trying to reason with suits, government suits at that, and other crazy people—but I think Itsy Bitsy over there will kick me through the wall, so I’ll pass this time.”

“My god, you can’t just say one word when twenty will do, can you?” Steve asked.

“It’s the caffeine,” Clint clarified. “Him and squirrels. Don’t give them any caffeine if you want an intelligible conversation.”

“Squirrels?”

“JARVIS, start a list.” Tony’s bond was practically twirling with mirth. _“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—_ both the Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp versions, and _Hoodwinked_ and _Over the Hedge.”_

_“Of course, sir. And SHIELD has dispatched a quinjet that should arrive within twenty minutes.”_

“Thank you, JARVIS,” Steve said, grateful for the interruption. He enjoyed movies, what few he’d seen back before the serum, but he hadn’t had a chance to see what they were like in the 21st century and Tony’s maniacal cheer was worrying. “Well. Let’s suit up.”

The team scattered around the penthouse to find their discarded uniforms—all except Tony, who was still plowing his way through breakfast. But by the time they all assembled on the helipad with the quinjet landing, the engineer was neatly groomed and in a no-nonsense suit, sunglasses perched on his nose. 

The flight to the helicarrier was uneventful. While they waited for security to vet them through, Steve glanced over at Clint to try and assess his soulmate’s anxiety level. With the bond still resolutely blocked off on Clint’s end, there was just his expression to gauge, which Steve found as impassive as a computer screen. 

Then the archer’s fingers started to fiddle with a buckle on his uniform as they were shown to a conference room, and by the time they were seated, his leg was bouncing beneath the table, a finger quickly joining on the tabletop. Natasha shot Clint a glance, her bond flickering, but said nothing. Much to Steve’s surprise, not even Tony commented.

The door swept open and Director Fury, shadowed by Agent Hill, walked into the room. He dropped into the chair at the head of the table and started without preamble: “Let’s start with the frankly surprising though obviously worrying while still strangely normal bits. Alien invasion. I’ve got people examining the corpses, the portal device, and whatever footage we can find, but Thor. What can you tell us about these Chitauri that we won’t find from that?”

Thor crossed his arms, looking apologetic. “The Chitauri hail from a far edge of the galaxy that I have never traveled to, so I have had no dealings with them. I know not how Loki came upon them—by all rights he should not be alive.”

Tony raised a brow over his sunglasses. “That’s new.”

Thor looked around the table. “Did I not tell you this?”

“Decidedly not,” Bruce replied.

“Oh.” Thor’s bond rippled as its surface was disturbed by something large and unwieldly twisting down below. He tapped a finger on the tabletop slowly. “After I returned home from my banishment here, Loki fell from the Bifrost into space.”

Tony sputtered, nearly falling off his chair. “Wait, what, excuse me? Fell into space? Space? No-air-no-pressure-cosmic-radiation space? That space?”

“Indeed. We believed him dead and mourned as such. I do not know how he landed amongst the Chitauri and thusly found his way to Midgard. This is something I dearly wish to ask him.”

Director Fury’s eye was not impressed. “Alright. The rest of you, I need your impressions. What’s it like to fight them?”

“No different from well-armored Earth soldiers once they’re on the ground,” Natasha said. Clint ticked his fingers in agreement without looking up from the table.

“The Moby Dicks are pains in the ass,” Tony offered. “I want a look at their tech.”

“Denied. Doctor Banner, Captain?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t really remember much besides hitting the things that were trying to hit me. Or catching falling red specks.” Bruce frowned slightly at Tony who smiled sunnily back.

“They didn’t have much group cohesion,” Steve said. “They attacked what was in front of them and destroyed what they could, but they didn’t seem to rely on formations, intricate strategy, or teamwork to do so. It felt more like fighting packs of thugs than an army.”

Tony raised his hand like he was in school. “While we’re on the topic of strategy, can I just say that Loki’s was completely kooky?”

“Care to elaborate on that, Stark?” Director Fury asked. 

“Oh come on. His ‘plan’ was to antagonize every member of the only group able to do much damage to him, open a portal over the most populated city of the country most able to defend itself—a portal so tiny that only one Moby Dick at a time could get through when _they had a freaking mothership_ —with a device that could be shut down by his own weapon? There are so many holes in that plan, it’s practically Apple software. Jesus, hasn’t anyone see _Independence Day? Star Wars_ —they’re aliens, how do we know they don’t have a Deathstar? Hell, even _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ managed to destroy the planet. And that’s just the use of his alien army. How was that stunt in Stuttgart supposed to help? Yes yes yes, he got the iridium for the portal, but why be so obvious about it? He does illusions for fuck’s sake. He could have disguised himself and none of us would have been the wiser. He could have kept low and sabotaged all our weapons systems, communications, satellite networks. Shit, I know pickpockets with more strategy than him.”

Tony looked around the silent conference room.

“What, you’re saying none of that ever occurred to you? Not even you, Director SuperSpy? What kind of secret government organization director are you?”

Director Fury settled back into his chair and glared at Tony. 

“I fear I must agree with the Man of Iron. Loki is known for his cunning on Asgard. In comparison to certain…pranks…he has pulled, the strategy of this invasion was weak.”

“You’d think he almost wanted to fail, he left so many weak spots,” Tony added. 

Clint’s knee hit the table.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Look, sir, can we move this along?”

Director Fury flicked his eye over to him and considered for a moment before speaking. “Agent Barton, there’s a psychiatric team in medical fully briefed.”

Clint was silent a moment, then sighed. He gave an absent salute and slipped out the door. 

Director Fury turned back to the rest of them. “Now, onto the frankly disturbing bits. Give me a full rundown on your soulbonds.”

Steve shifted in his seat. “Excuse me, sir, but isn’t that personal information?”

“Not when it means a damn supervillain might still have access to not only one of my best covert agents but also the earth’s first line of defense through goddamn mind-links, it doesn’t.”

“The bonds are nothing unusual,” Bruce interjected hurriedly as Tony was clearly gearing up to say something. Steve worked hard to keep his face as blank as possible; he knew he didn’t have a poker face and didn’t want to attract attention to Bruce’s blatant lie. “And Agent Barton swiftly blocked his out as soon as we heard about Loki.”

“And his behavior?” Director Fury pressed. “How would you classify it?”

“Shaken after the cognitive recalibration,” Natasha said, her bond bristled but otherwise unruffled, “but in top form during the battle.”

“And after?”

“Professional.”

The Director surveyed the rest of them. “Any of you have anything to add?”

Thor shook his head as Tony said, “Nope,” popping the p. “What exactly are you looking for, Nickypoo?”

Director Fury glared at him. “I’m looking for any indication that this little stunt of Loki’s isn’t over, because if it isn’t then we need to be prepared. Agent Barton was compromised once. Anything done once can be done again.”’

Steve glanced around the table, evaluating his soulmates. Their bonds all sang in agreement. He turned to the Director. “That is not something you need to worry about. Sir.”

Director Fury looked at him for a moment with that dead, blatantly judging stare of his before getting up and leaving. 

Agent Hill tapped a few buttons on her tablet. “JARVIS told us of your plans to interrogate Loki. Preparations have been made and the relevant personnel informed. They are ready whenever you are.”

“Where are you keeping him this time?” Bruce asked.

“Reinforced general brig until we decide what to do with him. There are no other prisoners currently, so the entire wing is on lock down.”

“Loki has crimes on Asgard he has yet to answer for. He will face Asgardian justice.” Thor’s voice brooked no argument. 

Agent Hill just gave Thor a polite smile before following Director Fury out. 

Thor grumbled under his breath as Tony got up from his chair and stretched. “So,” the engineer said, “Loki?”

“Clint first,” Natasha said, rising from her chair. 

She led them through the halls to the medical wing where they were directed to an examination room by a nurse. Clint was sitting in a chair with a cap on his head from which a gazillion wires connected to an EEG machine. The doctors had tried to explain what the machine measured when they’d hooked Steve up to it, but all he’d understood was that it looked at his brain. Several said doctors were clustered around the monitor. Clint himself looked bored out of his mind. 

“Everything alright?” Steve asked as their two resident scientists walked up to look over the equipment (Tony) and the monitor (Bruce). 

Clint rolled his eyes. “They finished bombarding me with questions and moved onto shooting electricity through my brain.”

“That’s not how it works,” Bruce said.

“What does this Midgardian machine do?” Thor asked. “And why is it attached to your head like a wig?”

“It’s an electroencephalography machine,” Bruce replied. “It measures the electrical impulses traveling through the brain to provide insight into their fluctuations and patterns.”

“Apparently,” Tony said, swiping through data on his phone, “SHIELD discovered that the mind-control from the forced soulbonds messed with people’s brainwaves. Made them resemble something like that found in known schizophrenia patients or something—and when they took the scans to determine this, I would love to know. According to these files, all SHIELD employees have to get a baseline sca—holy shit what lousy resolution. These scans are like looking at the dark ages.”

Natasha rolled her eyes, but her bond had a tinge of affection. It made Tony squint at her for a moment. 

“I don’t care what it’s measuring,” Clint said. “I just want to know if it’s done.”

Steve looked at the doctors. “Are you?”

The doctors shuffled, looked at each other. “The majority of the tests are done, yes, but we still have—”

“Are they important?”

“Well—”

“Can they wait?”

“Director Fury—”

“They can wait,” Tony decided. “Come on, Legolas, we’ve got a date with Reindeer Games.”

Clint shot the engineer a look that could have dried the Pacific and pushed the wired cap from his head before any of the doctors could. Natasha bumped her shoulder against his before exiting. 

Tony and Bruce followed, bent over the screen of Tony’s phone, talking in words that Steve was positive weren’t of English origin. Thor held the door for him, and Steve took a moment to wonder just how exactly his life got to this point. 

Before going under the water, he’d had no soulbonds, something the army had kept quietly under wraps. He understood the reasoning, even agreed with it in his more practical moods, but it had always bothered him. Made him feel like a fraud. He was Captain America, protector of the people, someone who was relied upon to keep others safe and take care of them. Yeah, he knew it was just a persona, a role to play, but still. How would the people take it if they discovered he had no soulmate, no one who shared a piece of his soul? 

You only got that by having someone come to understand you so deeply that they didn’t have to think about it, they just knew, and that had never happened to him. With the Howling Commandoes, that had kinda made sense. They had shared combat and loss, but they only knew Steve post-serum, Steve who must always play just that little bit of Captain America. Sure, the things that allowed him to play Captain America were what also made him Steve, but the Howling Commandoes didn’t know where those things came from, how they were born and nurtured by a childhood spent as the underdog, constantly sick and dismissed, by fighting tooth and claw to get anywhere or anything, by a decision long ago to never be what those around him were. 

Bucky was the only one around for that. Steve would never admit it—because it was childish, selfish, and embarrassed him all to hell—but it had always hurt that Bucky had never “got” it, never became his soulmate. Surely Bucky could’ve understood why he would always get into fights he couldn’t really finish. Why he went against the law to try and get into the army. Why he’d _needed_ to. 

It was childish and selfish because everyone knew that soulbonds were a two-way street. If Bucky didn’t understand him enough to become soulmates, then that also meant he didn’t understand Bucky. And if he couldn’t become soulmates with Bucky, it was next to impossible that he would become soulmates with anyone else, and what kind of “super hero” was that? Even Tony had soulmates before the Avengers.

So how, after only months awake in a place where everything from the toothpaste on up was exotic and strange, did he suddenly have not one but five soulmates? People who “got” him so well they shared a piece of their soul with him? People who were spy assassins who probably knew more ways to kill him with their pinkies even with the serum, an honest-to-goodness shapeshifter, Howard Stark’s genius son who made more money in one second than his mother had made in her whole life, and a person who wasn’t even from the same planet. How had any of that happened?

Thor’s gaze flickered over to him, and the god laid a hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze as his bond radiated comfort. Steve realized that this whole situation must be just as weird for the god, bonding to a group of people on a strange planet who had also just trounced his baby brother. He blinked, understanding thrumming through him bones for an instant before grinning back at the god. 

It was certainly weird and strange and made absolutely _no_ sense, but also strangely not discomforting. Affection and possessiveness washed over him as he glanced around the team. They were his now, and he was going to fight to keep them so.

He scowled, then chuckled when he realized Tony had said essentially the same thing just last night. 

\------------------------------------------------

The brig’s wing was sealed off from the rest of the helicarrier with locks that made Tony’s eyes shine and was guarded by no less than a dozen agents in SWAT gear. Out of the corner of his eye, Clint saw Steve look at Thor, “Is all that really necessary?”

Thor waffled his hand in a move that he must have learned from Tony. “It is difficult to determine. I have seen my brother escape from much tighter nooses than this, but he was severely injured in our battle and he has no allies to aid him if he did manage to escape. However, Loki’s magic makes him difficult to contain any day, especially with only your Midgardian machinery.”

Tony looked up from his phone. Clint was vaguely reminded of a dog hearing the word “bacon.” He settled back to watch as Nat talked to the guards. 

“You wouldn’t happen to have any magic-cancelling tech on you, would you, Point Break?” Tony asked as he sidled up. “What with you coming knowing he’d be here and all? Surely Daddy gave you some fancy toys just in cases?”

“Certainly he did, Man of Iron. I have some magic-neutralizing cuffs I plan to put in place during our meeting.” Clint frowned at Thor. He sounded strangely unhappy about that. 

“Mind if I have JARVIS take a quick look at them first? For old time’s sake and all that? Won’t take but a moment—”

The guards opened the doors and Clint lost all interest in listening to Tony try to cajole Thor into giving up the new shiny toy. Nervous energy zipped down his spine. He fiddled with a buckle.

The guards showed them to a viewing room that overlooked a small interrogation cell. A metal chair was bolted to the cell’s floor in the far corner, slanted to partially face the mirrored window, d-rings about the surrounding surfaces. 

The bastard already occupied it. His wrists were secured to the arms and his ankles to the legs. A leather belt was buckled around his waist from which more chains ran to the d-rings, two to the wall and two to the floor. Unless magic or spy tech came into play, the god was going nowhere. 

Clint relegated everything else to the back of his mind as he studied the bastard. He still looked like he’d been through a paper shredder, cuts all over him from having been smashed into Tony’s floor, not to mention the few burns from his exploding arrow. The dark circles under his eyes weren’t any smaller than they had been at the SHIELD facility, and all the lines in his face seemed inches deeper. The god looked like shit, like he hadn’t slept in days and would collapse at the merest breeze. But the bastard’s hands were open and relaxed on the arms of the chair, and his shoulders held no tension as he gazed at the closed door. 

“Thor?” Steve asked, pulling Clint’s attention back to the room. Steve was offering Thor an earbud comm. “Would you like to do the honors?” Thor settled the bud in his ear, pulled metal cuffs from a pocket and exited to reemerge in the interrogation cell.

Bruce and Tony had already claimed the two seats in front of the window; Tony was still muttering grumpily about magic tech and misers. Nat took up post to Tony’s right, between the window and the door, with Steve in parade rest just to her left, allowing Clint a clear view of the cell. He pressed himself back against the wall, allowing the cold surface to steady him, and crossed his arms. 

Beyond the glass, the gods eyed each other like two tigers trying to decide if the other was ignorable, or if they should claw the other’s throat out. Loki looked like he would have leant toward the later. After a moment, Thor inclined his head in greeting. “Well met, brother.”

Loki quirked a brow and said nothing. 

Thor held up the cuffs as he crossed the small space. “I am sorry for this, but circumstances have forced it upon me.”

“Do not try to lie to me, Thor,” Loki huffed. His voice was still panther-smooth but was definitively blurred around the edges. Clint narrowed his eyes. Was SHIELD drugging him to keep the god from doing anything?

A low hiss slipped past Loki’s lips as the cuffs clamped about his forearms above the restraints, the chain between them spooling in his lap. His shoulders hunched for an instant before relaxing back into their nonchalant line.

“Interesting reaction,” Bruce mused.

“Whatever you may think of me, Loki, I do not enjoy causing you pain. Now,” Thor continued, stepping back and settling onto his heels, “we have unfinished business to discuss.”

Loki rolled his eyes. 

“You fell from the Bifrost, and yet you live. I am glad of this, but I would have the reason from you.”

“Why, was Heimdall unable to inform you? How frustrating that must be.”

“He was able to inform us of your appearance in Stuttgart.”

“Is that your idea of ‘timely’? As I recall, you arrived _after_ the main event had finished.”

Thor crossed his arms as he closed his eyes and visibly called for patience. “Did the Chitauri aid you, Loki?”

“I rather think I was the one aiding them, as they had no ability to use the Tesseract.”

“They provided you with the Mind Gem,” Thor countered. “How did they come by it?”

“Ah.” Loki tilted his head back snidely. “That would be telling.”

Thor swore. “For once in your life, Loki, answer the question!”

Loki looked at Thor like he was a stupid child.

Thor took a deep breath, waited a moment. “The Man of Iron thinks you failed purposefully. Is this true, Loki?”

“Why would any person set out to fail as spectacularly as I did?”

“Why indeed,” Tony muttered.

When Loki continued, his voice was hard and tempered, all trace of blurriness gone. “Is that all you have to ask, Thor? How quickly your concern for my wellbeing has dried up. The speed at which you turnabout is frankly astonishing, _brother_ dear. However do you manage it without suffering whiplash?”

“I never—”

“Ah, but then your little mortal friends must have had a hand in that. It was their planet they barely saved from eternal slavery and destruction by their own weaponry, after all. Frankly, I am amazed they let you in here first. Surely that little hawk would have wanted a piece, if not that nosy spider.” A thought crossed his face. He tutted. “Thor,” Loki said disapprovingly, “surely by now you must know that sleeping with someone is not the only answer.”

The air in the viewing room was prickly with static; Clint actually managed to shock himself when he brushed his fingers against a buckle.

“Thor,” Steve said into the mic, “time to regroup. _Thor_ ,” he said a little more strongly when the god made no move. A tense moment passed while neither of the two gods moved. Muscles in Thor’s jaw bunched as the jaw moved, but he turned on his heel and left, taking great care with the door. 

Steve opened the viewing room’s door for him, and Thor entered, taking a few deep breaths to settle the static before saying anything. “I apologize on behalf of my brother. I would like to think that he meant no disrespect, but…Agent Romanoff, I hope that you do not think…”

Nat shrugged. “I’ve heard worse from slimier people.”

Tony snorted, clasping his hands behind his head. “ _I’ve_ been accused of worse by morally-upright people. Obnoxious bastard, isn’t he?”

“Please,” Nat said. “He played right into my hands last time.” She plucked another earbud from their drawer and was out the door before Clint could remind her that last time, she’d sat on his bedside with shadows in her eyes. He shoved off the wall, hands clenching as he stared the bastard down through the glass, not caring that he couldn’t detect it.

Nat entered the cell and settled against the far wall from Loki, lounging as if she was in a friend’s room. Loki’s jaw gritted minutely before he offered her the same bland, closed stare he had Thor. 

After a few moments of letting them all stew, Nat smiled sweetly. “Let’s get the pleasantries over with, shall we? You have lost, your army is defeated, you are my prisoner, and there aren’t any allies coming to free you. I hold all the cards, so you are going to answer all my questions.”

“And how did you come to that conclusion?”

Nat raised an eyebrow. “Did I say I was going to answer your questions? Tell me about the Mind Gem. How does it force soulbonds?”

Loki visibly considered.

“The Mind Gem can mimic the effects of _óðr_ by superseding the subject’s _munr_ and _hugr_ with the wielder’s own. This forces a ‘soulbond’, as you Midgardians so quaintly put it, and from there it is an easy matter to manipulate with magic and a light touch of _seiðr_ to enforce and facilitate.”

Clint growled; how like the bastard. Form without substance, letter of the law but not the spirit. 

Tony pointed at Thor. “You will be explaining later, big guy.”

Thor actually looked sheepish. “I am a warrior, not a scholar like Loki. I am afraid I will not be of much help.”

“Anything is better than nothing at this point,” Bruce said. 

In the cell, Loki was waiting for Nat’s reaction. 

“Did you take the people you did because they would be easier to force a bond with?”

Loki scowled briefly before his face smoothed back out and he scoffed. “I am a god, you puny mortal. I can use the Mind Gem on whoever I please. I took the people I did because they were useful. Why would I surround myself with loyal but idiotic minions? Do you Midgardians have any pretense to intelligence or are you truly as backwater as you appear?”

Thor scowled. “He is being excessively antagonistic.”

“He is surrounded by enemies,” Tony offered. “That tends to make people snipe.”

“No, just you, Tony,” Bruce said. “Most people don’t try to irritate the people in a position to make their life worse.”

“Loki is a god,” Thor reminded them apologetically. “There is little you could do to truly inconvenience him.”

“If you think so lowly of us,” Nat continued, “why did you keep the soulbond with Agent Barton?”

“Why such concern, Agent Romanoff? You’ve saved the day, rescued your little hawk, erased some of that red from your ledger like you so hoped to. Unless you’ve discovered that it isn’t enough?” Loki grinned, fierce and wild and perhaps a touch mad. “It won’t ever be enough, will it?” he asked softly.

“We have been through this.”

“Oh I beg to differ. That was before, when you still had a ray of hope. Now you’ve accomplished what you wanted to. Where is that little ray now? What color is it? Yes. You’ve saved the city, the planet, but what number of people—innocents, parents, children—died when the Chitauri attacked? Burned by their weapons? Crushed beneath falling brick and mortar? Do you feel alleviated, Agent Romanoff? Do you feel absolved?”

Clint was charging into the cell before Loki finished his little speech. How dare he, how dare he once again flail that deeply into Nat. It had taken him years to push those shadows out of her gaze, and here this bastard used information he would never have given him otherwise to remind her of them twice in as many days. He was going to pluck out the god’s eyes and use them as target practice. 

Nat made an inquiring noise. Clint looked at her, ran his eye across her mask for cracks, checked for shadows. She tilted her chin, her gaze steady, unwavering—clear. He thought about unblocking the bond, just for a moment, to see if she was really fine or just pretending, but the menace in the corner was too great. He met her eyes. After a moment, she nodded once and left. The door closed firmly behind her and it was just him and the menace in the little cell, mirrored window in the left-hand wall gloomily reflecting them back at themselves. 

The bastard eyed him darkly. 

“Are you going to kill me, Agent Barton? That won’t work out very well for you, will it?”

“I can handle a little pain.” He marched up to Loki’s chair and rested his hands over the restraining cuffs, leaning into Loki’s space. The bastard had nowhere to look but at him. “Now you are going to answer Widow’s question. Why. Did you. Keep. The soulbond?”

Loki barked out a harsh laugh. “I appreciate the flattery, Agent Barton, but not even I have jurisdiction here. The Norns will play whatever games they choose, regardless of how the pawns screech at the injustice.”

“The Norns.”

“Get Golden Boy to explain it to you. I haven’t the patience for your little mortal mind.”

“Is that really how you want to play it? You may be a god, but I’ve got all the time and resources in the world. There’s an island to the north of here—it’s called Iceland, maybe you remember it from one of your previous visits. There’s quite a few geysers there, volcanoes. You’re intelligent.”

Loki said nothing.

“I repeat, why did you keep the soulbond?”

Loki ground his teeth before finally gritting out, “It wasn’t any decision of mine.”

“Well, it’s nice to know you’re as _inconvenienced_ by this as I am. But that doesn’t answer the question. One more strike and there’s a hot bath in your future. _Why hasn’t the soulbond disappeared?”_

Loki swore in no language Clint understood. “Why else do bonds form, you _seinn-vit skit-karl!”_

Clint’s stomach flipped. “I do not share _anything_ with you.”

Loki pressed forward till their noses practically touched. When he spoke his voice was a low hiss. “Because that would make you bad, wouldn’t it, little hawk? Damaged, tainted, unclean. Just what you always feared you were—unsalvageable. And wouldn’t that just break that little spider’s heart.”

Clint’s hands clenched around Loki’s wrists, pressing the cuffs deeper into the bastard’s bones as he glared at him. Loki glared right back, something fierce, wild—and just a touch bleak in his gaze. 

Clint ripped himself away and stalked out of the cell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, Loki goes for the jugular, every time. Sorry, the fluff kinda disappeared at the end there.
> 
> Also, disclaimer, I do not pretend to know anything about Old Norse, Norse, Norwegian, Icelandic, or any other language connected to Old Norse mythology or Viking culture. All words used here were found on the Internet and then messed with. If I've used any in a way that makes your teeth grind, please correct me ^^
> 
> Next up: some decisions are made and others are investigated


	3. In Which Decisions Are Made (And One Is Postponed)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Otherwise known as the Council of Elrond

The team met him as he paced up and down the hallway, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. He wanted his bow. And something to shoot. Something soft. Preferably god-shaped.

Thor was the first to say anything. 

“I feel I must apologize for my brother’s language, friend Clint. The words he used were…not polite.”

Tony snorted. “You should have seen your face, Point Break. I would ask how you manage to look that shocked, angry, exasperated, and apologetic for every kicked puppy in the world all at the same time without breaking something, but Pepper does it often enough that I’ve found it’s just better not to ask. You know, the one time I asked Rhodey about it, he threatened to slash my tires?”

“On one car or all of them?” Bruce asked mildly.

Steve just threw Tony a glare. “Not everything is a soapbox, Tony.”

“You know, I never understood that idiom? I think there’s a _Calvin and Hobbes_ cartoon about it. You should read it, Cap. Great stuff. I actually tried making a transmogrifier once.”

Bruce actually choked. 

Clint turned and pressed his forehead into the cool metal of the wall while his soulmates’ chatter washed over him. It wasn’t enough; their presence wasn’t enough. He needed their bonds. Needed Nat’s steadiness, Bruce’s pragmatism, even Tony’s manic energy would be welcome. The silence in his head had never mattered much before—just another thing to endure on missions—but maybe it was the new soulbonds making themselves known or a lingering effect from the mind-control but fuck did it suck. 

Nat nudged his foot. “What’d he say to you?”

“…the soulbond didn’t disappear because it’s an actual bond. Nat, it’s real.” He turned his head to look at her. “How can it possibly be real?”

Nat settled a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know. But, Clint, we heard that part. I meant at the end. What did he say at the end?”

Maybe there was one okay side effect about having his bonds blocked. At least now he could pretend that Nat wouldn’t see through his lies. 

She pursed her lips. Tension started to congeal in the hall. 

“Ah, how about we take this to a conference room?” Bruce suggested quickly. “It’ll be more comfortable.”

“Amen to that,” Tony said. He hooked one arm around Steve’s shoulders and the other around Clint’s, dragging them down the hall. “Let’s just leave Reindeer Games to stew in his own vile juices.”

But when the doors to the rest of the helicarrier opened, they were confronted by an angry Nick Fury and a whole platoon of agents. Two agents had been working furiously on tablets, while another two had been preparing to blowtorch the door. 

“Ever heard of knocking, Nicky dear?” Tony asked. 

“Stark,” Fury said, swishing his trench coat back to put his hands on his hips, pointedly close to his hip holster, “I’d like to know why the security feed on the most volatile part of this boat suddenly started playing cat videos, not to mention why these doors no longer recognize SHIELD access codes.”

The team looked at Tony. 

Bruce pinched his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “Tony. You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t.”

“Uh, cause what went on in here is private and SHIELD is a nosy busybody? I know that’s a hard concept for you, SuperSpy, but seriously, what are you, our grandmother?

“That is a war prisoner in there who wields forces we can’t contain—”

“Pardon me for interrupting, Director,” Thor said, “but I have placed upon Loki cuffs that will neutralize his magic. There is no cause for concern in that regard.”

Fury eyed Thor. 

“I’d like control of my own boat back, Stark.”

Tony waved the fingers of a hand. “Yeah, yeah, sure. JARVIS?”

_“Right away. Shall I provide copies of the interviews with Loki, sir, or would you prefer to keep that confidential?”_

As Fury yelled at JARVIS about making himself at home in SHIELD’s server and proprieties, Tony looked at Clint. Clint blinked back. Tony scowled.

Clint took a moment to consider the offer seriously before rolling his eyes. All of this was starting to become too much work.

“Thor? Natasha?” Tony threw over his shoulder. 

“I have no objections, friend Stark.”

Nat must have answered through the bond because Tony turned back to Fury. “Yeah, sure, JARVIS, let him have the footage. Now, if you don’t mind, One-eye, I’d like to sit down. I’ve reached my standing quota for the day.”

The footage from the interrogation cell popped up on one of the tablets, a tablet which Fury immediately took control of and walked away with. Nodding to the agents, Tony once again set off down the hall. 

The team eventually settled back in the same conference they had debriefed in. Clint leaned his head back in his chair and swiveled in a circle, staring at the ceiling. 

“So,” Steve said, “that went well, considering.”

Tony scoffed. “We didn’t get blown up. Go team. Yay.”

“Tony, did you have to take complete control of the wing?” Bruce asked.

“Didn’t you hear me say I’d have JARVIS inside?”

“Yes, but I thought we talked about this, Tony. No unnecessary hacking!”

“I don’t recall that exact verbage—”

“Boys,” Nat said in her infinite-patience voice. Geniuses that they were, they shut up.

“So,” Steve said again into the silence. “What exactly did we learn from all that? Loki didn’t seem particularly forthcoming.”

Nat planted a foot on Clint’s chair to stop it from turning. “He was baiting us.”

“What do you mean?” Thor asked.

“He deliberately went for cutting remarks as soon as he saw the opportunity. Thor, he began pushing your buttons the minute you walked in the room. It’s a valid deflection technique, though the risk involved and its effectiveness depends on the questioner.” She flicked her eyes over to the engineer. “You should know, Tony.”

“I, dear lady? What _ever_ gave you that idea?”

“I would say he just didn’t want to give us any information,” Nat continued, ignoring him, “but he did offer an explanation for the mind-control and Clint, he was fairly cooperative with you.”

“I threatened to throw him into a volcano. Anyone would be cooperative.”

“He survived _space,_ ” Tony countered. 

“Jesus, you’re just not going to let that go, are you?” Clint demanded.

“Of course not! No one survives _space!_ The very idea eviscerates physics and makes balloon animals with its guts!”

“Down, Tony,” Bruce murmured. 

Thor rumbled quietly. “Actually, friend Clint’s threat of heat could have induced such cooperativeness from Loki. He has certain qualities that make it a viable threat.”

“Care to explain?” Tony asked.

Thor shifted in his seat. “Not at the moment, no.”

The rest of the team’s eyes riveted on the god and Clint deduced something must have happened with his bond because no one pressed further, even though that information was incredibly pertinent. He filed the info away for future digging.

“Essentially what it comes down to,” Nat said after a moment, “is that Loki did everything he could to compromise us.”

“Why would he do that?” Steve asked. 

“Because he’s a crazy psycho?” Tony offered.

“Eh, no, I think this is a valid question.” Bruce’s glasses clinked as he played with them. “I mean, he had nothing to gain from it. Last time, he was trying to scare Natasha in the hopes that she would do something stupid or run, but as she said, we hold all the cards this time. If he didn’t want to give us any information, he could have just not talked.”

“He wanted us out of the room.”

The whole team looked at Nat. She shrugged. “Based on the outcomes of the interrogations and his reactions when people entered the room, that’s the only logical conclusion without further information.”

“That still leaves the question of ‘why’,” Bruce said. 

The door opened and Fury walked in. 

“For fuck’s sake, you can’t stand to be left out, can you?” Tony cried.

Fury dropped into a chair without looking at him. Instead, he turned at Thor. “I’m taken to understand you know a little about the terms Loki used in regards to mind-control.”

Thor frowned slightly. “As I have told my shield-mates, I am not the scholar Loki is so I cannot give you many details.” Tony opened his mouth but Thor sighed and nodded before he got a word out. “But I will provide what I can.” 

There was silence in which Clint counted rivets in the ceiling and Tony grumbled under his breath. 

“I do not know how Midgard thinks of this, but on Asgard there are six components which make up a person. The _munr_ and _hugr_ Loki spoke of are two of these components. Even with Allspeak, they have no direct translation into your tongue, and you would need a scholar to give you true understanding.” Thor made a frustrated noise. “As far as I am able to tell, _hagr_ is the component that is responsible for your intellect, and _munr_ is responsible for your emotions.”

There was tapping from Tony’s seat, his grumbles forgotten. 

“Well, would you look at that,” the engineer said. “Look’s like mythology actually got that bit right. Who would have thunk.”

“May I?” Bruce asked. The phone switched hands. “Fascinating,” the scientist murmured as he scrolled through the information. “You realize this little talk just gave us more insight into soulology and how soulbonds might work than the past fifty years?”

Tony waved a dismissive hand. “Soft sciences.”

“Do not even try to pretend to me that Thor’s very existence isn’t reworking physics, Tony.”

Tony ignored him. “Okay, big guy, what about the rest?”

“ _Seiðr_ is much easier to explain. It is a form of non-physical manipulation distinct from magic. It is what the Norns and _volur_ practice to foresee and occasionally manipulate fate.”

All sound in the room halted. 

Clint slowly lifted his head to stare at the god. “Are you saying that Loki literally changed my destiny? Is that really what you’re saying?”

“Like the Greek Fates?” Steve asked. 

Thor frowned. “I am not familiar with this term.”

“The Fates were three women in the Greek pantheon that controlled people’s lives,” Bruce explained. “One spun the thread of your life, the second wove it into the fabric with the rest of mankind, and the third cut it when you were to die.”

Thor’s face lit up. “Yes, that is very similar in concept!”

“And ohthur?” Tony asked. “What’s that?”

Thor winced. _“Óðr,”_ he corrected. “It is the concept that I understand the least as it has had no impact on my life so far. _Hagr_ and _munr_ are something that all schoolchildren are taught eventually, and my mother is highly skilled in the use of _seiðr_ —she is, in fact, one of the most accomplished _volur_ Asgard boasts. _Óðr_ by contrast is a highly individual experience. As far as I can tell, there is little way to induce it by choice except for berserkers and that is hereditary.”

Tony squinted at the god. “That’s it? That’s literally all you got.”

“I have never had cause to inquire further.” Thor was starting to look distinctly uncomfortable. “ _Óðr_ is the realm of berserkers, _volur_ , and artists. I—and most others in Asgard—have had little need to understand it.”

“To get back on topic,” Fury said with a glare for Tony when the engineer opened his mouth. “What you’re saying is that Loki essentially implanted pieces of himself into my agents with magic so that he could control their actions.”

Thor ran a hand frustratedly through his hair. “Yes, as far as I can tell, but I do not know enough to know for certain.” Annoyance practically oozed off him. Clint didn’t even need to unblock the bond to tell that.

“So in other words, we have no idea if Loki can or cannot do it again.”

“I have placed neutralizing cuffs on him. Loki can no more use his magic than he could an amputated limb.”

“That’s no guarantee.”

“While on Asgard, Loki will be hard pressed to do anything to Midgard.”

Fury settled back into his chair. “‘On Asgard.’”

Thor stared the man down. “Loki will face Asgardian justice. Any crimes he committed against Midgard will be tried in the same trial. It is part of inter-realm law.”

The scientists’ heads popped up. 

“There’s such a thing as inter-realm law?” Bruce asked.

“Do we even count?” Tony added. “No offense, big guy, we haven’t exactly been included in your little club before this.”

“Before, Asgard was occupied with other realms, and when we did visit, the denizens of Midgard had only just discovered how to smelt iron. Still, Midgard is under my protection and is thus included in inter-realm law as a protectorate of Asgard.”

“Well gee thanks,” said Tony.

Fury didn’t look particularly happy about that either. “And does that mean, exactly? More visits from you gods mucking about with innocent people?” 

“No. The laws were put in place so that realms could develop without interference from more unscrupulous races. I have no wish to meddle with your politics or your wars. I merely protect from forces from without your planet.”

“Like Bag of Cats down the hall,” Tony offered pleasantly.

Thor shifted. “Yes.”

“You had better explain all the particulars,” Fury said, pinning Thor with a glare, “but in the meantime, I still see no true guarantee that Loki can’t take control of Agent Barton’s soulbond at any time.”

Thor actually growled. “I do not understand enough to know one way or the other!” He viciously scrubbed at his face with his hands. “By the Nine, book-learning never seemed important when I was younger! Loki was _always_ the better scholar.”

“I think I can say with certainty that no one on this boat will believe a word out his mouth. Agent Barton, I’m taking you off active duty until further notice.”

“Director, I’ve had the bond blocked as soon as I knew it existed and I haven’t felt any attempt at tampering from the other side.”

“There have been studies, Agent. The stress from keeping a bond blocked for an indefinite time builds up fast and that on top of a covert mission can lead to screw-ups, not to mention lasting psychological damage.” Fury gazed at him not-unkindly from across the table, though anyone who hadn’t known the man for years would have difficulty seeing it. “We’ve learned since the Cold War, Barton. I’m sorry. We can’t risk it.”

Clint thunked his head against the back of the chair. Repeatedly. So this was to be his life now? Relegated to a desk, watching other agents head out to kick ass and schooling new recruits on the range? Yes, SHIELD’s paper-pushers did good work, necessary work; SHIELD wouldn’t be half the organization it was without them—but it wasn’t righting wrongs, it wasn’t protecting people, it wasn’t putting an arrow to the string and picturing a face, wasn’t—

_Shit._

“There are other scholars on Asgard,” Thor said. “If you do not trust Loki to tell you the truth, you can ask the scholars that wrote the books he learned from. They will be able to tell you with certainty whether or not Loki’s bond with Clint Barton can be used to control him.” He paused briefly before plowing ahead. “And friend Clint…if the bond’s existence truly distresses you, Asgard is possessed of a way to sever bonds.”

Clint jerked up, staring wide-eyed at Thor. 

“You have a _what?”_

Thor looked pained. “This is another thing of which I know little, as I have never needed to, but Aesir are possessed of long lives and sometimes over the course of them a bond can become more of a burden than a blessing. This does not happen to many, but I have seen a dozen warriors sever bonds with shield-mates.” Thor looked at Clint warily. “From what I have heard, it is not a pleasant experience, but you are my shield-mate and a friend, and I do not wish to see you in distress if it is within my power to stop it.”

Thor’s eyes were dark and heavy as storm clouds. Clint blinked, for the first time aware in his gut of guts that the being he was locking eyes with was older than him by millennia and had spent all of that time with the same people, the same family members. How did anyone stand under the weight of all that. He tried to imagine having to spend even a century in uninterrupted company. With Nat and Phil, he didn’t think there would have been trouble, but with his own family…he looked away to survey the room.

The faces around the table ranged in reaction to Thor’s suggestion. The idea apparently was so awful that Steve’s face had blanked out and all Clint could see was a vague horror in his eyes. Nat had put on her mission face but a slight crinkle around her mouth gave her away. Fury was outright disgusted. Bruce had his hands over his eyes and leaned against the table, taking deep, measured breaths as the green tinge under his nails slowly receded. Clint could understand their reaction, especially Bruce’s. He’d already lost a soulmate. He _knew_ what it was like to lose a piece of his soul without the option to ever get it back. And that had happened purely by chance. How would the world look at someone who _chose_ to do that, to repudiate their soulmate, to deliberately, callously reach inside and excavate out a piece of what made them who they were.

Out of all the people in the room, Tony was the only one who met his eyes. His expression was bleak, swept and warped like an Arctic snowscape, but resolute. 

Because Thor had had magic-neutralizing cuffs, because all of this was so far beyond insane, because he _needed it,_ Clint inched up the blockade a millimeter, focusing down on Tony’s bond. 

It washed over his mind, its feedback and active presence soothing all the places he hadn’t known were hurting. There was disgust in the bond, yes, a small thread that couldn’t be disguised as anything else and wasn’t trying to be, but also the firm knowledge that some things were just not worth suffering through. 

There was no judgement there. Just unreserved, unwavering support. 

Clint’s mouth almost quirked in a smile. Who knew Tony could be such a steadfast rock. 

Across the table, Tony rolled his eyes but smiled quietly, briefly. 

Clint closed his eyes and wrapped his mind just one more time around Tony’s bond before blocking it all off again. Fuck, it was harder this time; this was all so much easier when all he was blocking was Phil and Nat—goddammit Fury was right. A desk would be all he was good for in this condition. And even that wouldn’t be for too long, a dark part of his mind whispered. How long would it be before he either caved and unblocked or went catatonic from the stress?

Thor was still watching him.

“Let’s talk to your scholars,” Clint said. He took a deep breath. “If it turns out that I can still be controlled, then—yes.”

The rest of the team didn’t look happy but no one argued. 

Thor nodded his understanding. “I am glad to hear you wish to accompany me. Loki will be put on trial soon after our arrival and as his shield-mate, you have legal standing in it. In truth, you all do,” he added, sweeping his gaze about the room. 

“Excuse me?” Tony asked.

“You are the ones who defeated and captured him on Midgard, and as such your testimony would be integral to the proceedings.”

Bruce blinked. “Wait. Are you saying we’ve just been _subpoenaed_? By _Asgard?”_

Thor fidgeted. “…yes.”

Nat snorted. 

“Right,” Tony said, waving a hand blithely. “Nothing I haven’t done before. So, how are we all getting to Viking-land, Point Break?”

“Excuse me,” Fury said. “What makes you think I’ll let the whole of the Avengers go haring off after a nuke was launched to save New York from an alien invasion?”

“You don’t get a vote in this, Nickypoo. You’re not included in this democracy.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Steve said over Tony, “this is not something we would let Clint do on his own.” He offered an apologetic smile to Clint, who shrugged back. He already knew Tony was committed, and he’d have to knock Nat out and pour cement around her feet to keep her from coming, and that was already over half of their team. “Plus,” he added, “we apparently have a legal obligation.”

“Director Fury, if you are worried about their ability to return, have no fear. The Bifrost’s repairs shall be complete by the end of the trial. The work crews were nearly finished when Heimdall spotted Loki.” Thor produced another device from God-knows-where on his person. It looked like a golden metal party cracker on steroids. “In the meantime, this device can transport us to Asgard by harnessing the Tesseract’s power.”

“The Tesseract,” Fury said.

“Yes,” Thor said simply. He looked at Fury. After a moment, Fury threw up a hand, rubbing at his brow with the other. “However,” Thor continued, turning back to the rest of the group, “my father was not aware that more than myself and my brother would need to be transported, so the device needs to be modified to accommodate the rest of you.” The god looked happier to have something he actually knew how to do. “Man of Iron, I was hoping you and Dr. Banner would be able to assist me as I lack the necessary tools.”

Tony’s eyes gleamed. 

Team Science and Thor were soon ensconced in a lab modifying the transportation device, leaving the rest of the team to finish up the paperwork that came with any kind of serious combat fighting in a populated civilian area. Leeway was being given for the whole alien thing, of course, but with things beginning the journey to normality, people, important people, were wanting to know just how much damage _exactly_ had been necessary or unavoidable and who was going to pay for fixing it all and how the hell had things gotten to that point in the first place?

Even though he hated, _loathed_ paperwork—hence his fear of desk jobs—Clint stayed put and diligently filled out the forms. Anything to distract his mind from what he had just agreed to. No matter what happened, there was going to be pain in his future. Guaranteed. Whereas paperwork, that he could dissociate from. The quiet was almost as good as having his soulbonds unblocked. Almost.

Then Fury walked back in after his latest teleconference, and he sighed. 

“If I may have a moment of your time, Agents,” Fury said.

“I’m not an agent,” Steve said, looking up from his stack of paper. 

“No, but you’re the de facto ‘leader’ of the Avengers, so you might as well be. SHIELD has things it would like you to do while in Asgard.”

Nat looked up. “Sir, the first visit might not be the most opportune time to spy. We don’t know anything about the layout, the culture, their information or communication networks—”

Fury held up a hand. “I am aware of that, Agent Romanoff. That’s not what I’m asking you to do. Just keep your ears and eyes open to give us a sense of what to expect from Asgard and how Earth fits into their little scheme. Quite frankly, I’m tired of gods showing up and screwing with the local population. It drains our funding and resources and it’s damned tiring. 

“I also want to remind you that you all will be the first visitors from Earth they’ll have had. You are our ambassadors. Give a good impression. Try to develop the idea of a trade relationship, cultural exchange, anything peaceful and beneficial. If too many of these guys show up, they could wipe the floor with us. Keep that from becoming a possibility. 

“And most especially,” he said, pinning them all with his eye, “rein in Stark.”

\---------------------------------------------

Later, while the rest of the team was out packing or tying up loose ends—Tony was setting up plans for the Tower’s renovation while they were gone and making sure Pepper wasn’t about to blow up in his face—Clint slipped up to an unused computer terminal in an out of the way corner and accessed the system using the ID card from an agent over in navigation. Then, using shortcuts and back doors that he’d stolen from Phil weeks ago, he pulled up the files on Loki. 

There was the official notice of his capture and subsequent imprisonment on the helicarrier, the roster for the guard rotation on his cell, requisition orders for heavier security equipment and munitions, even the paperwork for a brief medical examination—mainly CAT scans to ensure the god wasn’t hiding anything in his body cavities or teeth—but nowhere was there any mention of injecting the god with anything. Not painkillers, not truth serums, not sedatives. 

The only other way to find out was to ask someone, and there was no way in hell Clint was going to show something that could be taken for concern. 

He closed the windows, erased the digital tracks, and dropped the ID card where the navigation agent was likely to see it on his way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Up next: roadtrip!
> 
>  
> 
> 2/26/2016 -- so I thought I would have the next chapter ready by this weekend..........I don't. It's nearly done, but I have a week-long trip starting tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll finish it while sitting around in airports and get it to you guys without TOO much delay *crosses fingers*


	4. In Which the Avengers Come to Asgard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got this posted before the next weekend, woohoo! I seriously thought I wouldn't have any time to get to this until Thursday. 
> 
> You know, when I first started writing this I thought it would be at most 20k. 
> 
> ....
> 
> Ha. Yeah, nope. This will be more like 50k.
> 
> I still have no beta for this, so all mistakes are mine (if you see one, please let me know so I can fix it).

The Avengers stood in a circle on a small island off the east coast of Maine, luggage at their feet. Tony was in his suit, having spent a good portion of the last two days of their prep period repairing it from the battle and downloading a portable version of JARVIS. Clint and Nat had their weapons, Steve’s shield was strapped to his back, and all three of them wore their cleaned-up uniforms. Thor had assured them that bringing their weapon of choice would not be seen as a hostile act but would actually contribute to a good image. It made them look capable and experienced, and therefore they would command more respect during the trial and elsewhere. The uniforms helped with that. 

Bruce didn’t have a weapon but Thor had informed him some berserkers didn’t either so he would still be granted the same respect. What he did have was two wheeled luggage bags, as tall as his waist, full of equipment from Tony’s private labs, tablets bursting with Earth knowledge, empty thumb drives to ensure they didn’t run out of storage, and a mini-arc-reactor generator to power everything. Clint had made a comment about obsessions while they rushed around packing, but it hadn’t even registered with the scientists. 

All told, the luggage was counting as another person so they were at the very limit of the device’s transport capabilities. 

“And you’re absolutely sure I’m not going to get dropped or sent off into space or something equally unpleasant?” Clint asked for the thirty-fifth time, eyeing the transport device in Thor’s hand. The Tesseract glowed faintly from its center. It didn’t exactly fill Clint with confidence. 

From where he stood by Thor, Loki rolled his eyes. He was hobbled along with the magic-neutralizing cuffs, and he had been muzzled as well. It just seemed sensible after the interrogation cell. His posture was horrible: his shoulders slouched like they were made of paper and it seemed to be taking an effort of will to keep his head upright. Every once in a while it would start to lean one way or another and he would jerkily correct it. He rarely looked at any of the other people in the circle, instead staring off into the clouds with a dead, thousand-yard stare. 

“Have no fear, friend Clint,” Thor said. “Dr. Banner and Tony Stark were successful in modifying the device to my specifications. We are at its limits, yes, but we should arrive in Asgard with no trouble.”

“Right,” Clint said for the thirty-fifth time. He directed a two-finger salute up to the quinjet where Fury and Hill were watching. Sure, the device would carry them “safely” but the Bifrost burned patterns into the dirt when it did that. No one knew what the Tesseract would do—especially after what it did to the last place it opened a gate in—so it had been decided that the team should transport somewhere away from any possibility of casualties. He took a deep breath, tightened his grip on the luggage and squared his shoulders. “Right, well, let’s get this over with before I lose my nerve.”

Thor held out the party cracker. “This will transport anything that is in contact with it and by extension all that you are holding onto.” As if to demonstrate, he hooked his free hand around Loki’s nearest elbow, drawing the second god closer to himself. There was a bit of shuffling that eventually concluded with Steve, Nat, and Clint all holding onto the device’s handholds, while Tony had one arm hooked with Steve’s and the other around Bruce’s, who held on to their Science! luggage doggedly. 

“Ready?” Thor asked. 

“Beam us up, Scotty,” Tony said. 

Clint felt a grin stretch his face then Thor gave his handhold a solid twist and the world around them disappeared into a myriad of white lines. If pressed about it, he would say that it looked like one of those slide transitions on powerpoints, the kind where the slide split into strips that flew in opposite directions, only this was in the 3D, looked significantly less gimmicky, and was deeply, intrinsically disturbing as reality just shouldn’t _do that._ Vaguely, another _Star Trek_ quote flitted through his head, then reality recoalesced around them, the strips realigning in new colors and shapes. 

As soon as reality felt solid, Clint released the device and ran anxious hands over his body to check that everything was as it should be. He even briefly unblocked the bonds to check them too before reblocking them. Once he was satisfied that his kidneys hadn’t been transformed or his mind re-organized, he took a steadying breath and looked about. 

They stood in a small domed structure, golden gears the size of semi wheels on the walls. They looked half-complete; internal supports and what looked for all the world like electrical wiring made from fibrous crystal was visible in some sections. The windows were just holes in the walls. A neat stack of work materials were piled in an out of the way corner. It looked like some steampunk’s half-constructed version of an observatory, complete with—

 _“Holy shit!”_ Tony yelled. “Is that _space?”_

—fields of stars, velvety blackness, and many-colored nebulas visible through the windows and the gaps in the walls. 

In the center of the room was a circular golden dais where a large black guy in golden armor and golden helm—Jesus, even his eyes were gold, what was with these people and gold?—stood by a King Arthur sword. The guy nodded at them. “Welcome to Asgard, Midgardians.”

The rest of the team released the device and Thor stuffed it back into whatever place he had been keeping it. “Friends, allow me to introduce to you Heimdall, Guardian of the Bifrost and the first Sentry of Asgard. He has the ability to see everything that goes on in the Nine Realms.”

Bruce shifted. “That’s not creepy at all,” he murmured.

 _“1984,_ anyone?” Tony asked. 

“Heimdall, these are Midgard’s mightiest warriors. They have greatly aided me in bringing Loki home.”

Heimdall smiled. “I am aware, prince. I watched the whole event unfold. Indeed,” he continued with a long-suffering sigh, “the Allfather did not give me time to look at much else. I have sent a messenger to the palace. Transport should be arriving shortly.”

Bruce and Tony had stopped listening. They were busy using JARVIS and a table attempting to match the view out the window with Earth’s star charts. Thor thanked Heimdall, then steadied Loki with a surreptitious hand as the trickster swayed ever so slightly. The trickster blinked and shook it off. 

Clint noticed Heimdall studying Loki intensely. He wondered what the all-seeing dude knew that, quite possibly, no one else did. Good god, this was going to be the rest of the trip, wasn’t it? Constantly surrounded by people who were all older than the moon and had more history behind a single look than all of human civilization. Fuck, that was going to get old. And exhausting. At least space Vikings were bound to have good alcohol, right? Right?

“Ah,” Heimdall said, turning to look out the door. “Here they come now.”

With another nod of thanks, Thor ushered all of them out the door, Steve having to physically drag Tony and Bruce along.

Outside was a view to give even the height-loving archer vertigo. A wide walkway of more fibrous crystal, flickering with light like an aurora, stretched out toward a city on the other side of a sea that fell down into the infinity of space. A space full of stars and glowing nebulas that wrapped up around everything. There was nothing on the sides to keep someone from falling, absolutely nothing between a leisurely walk and what was possibly one of the most horrifying deaths imaginable. 

All the Avengers noticed that Thor was keeping Loki very firmly in the center of the walkway. 

Three crafts were flying out to them. As they got closer, it became obvious that they were boats. Rowboats with metal wings at their backs. Okay. Flying open-aired boats in space. Space Vikings. Right. 

“Nat, how did we ever get here?” he asked.

The redhead shrugged. “Same as always,” she said. “We walked into it.”

“We gotta stop doing that. Really.”

Nat said nothing, which said loads of what she thought about their future decision-making.

At least Tony and Bruce looked like they were enjoying themselves.

The boats landed on the walkway in a single-file line and armored guards jumped out, saluting at Thor. 

“Welcome home, prince,” the foremost one said. “We have orders to take Loki into custody and conduct you and your companions to the great hall.”

Thor seemed reluctant to let Loki go, but Loki actually shook himself out of the god’s grip and walked over to the guards himself, shocking everyone present. Clint eyed the trickster suspiciously, debating whether or not he should peek down the bond, then remembered the dark circles under the god’s eyes and his swaying from earlier. It was entirely possible he wasn’t up to anything more sinister than getting to a place where he could lie down. 

After staring for moment, two of the guards wrapped hands around Loki’s elbows and assisted him into a boat—an action which his hobbles made extremely difficult—and then the boat lifted off the walkway and zoomed back toward the glittering city across the water. 

Thor watched it for a moment before climbing into his own boat. Steve helped Bruce and Tony lug their ridiculous luggage into the other while Clint and Nat climbed in beside Thor. Tony decided to fly himself, lifting off and hovering while the rest of the team got situated and the boats took off. The guards flicked curious glances over to him once in a while. The show-off. 

It took only a few moments to skim over the sea and then the boats were maneuvering around the buildings of the city, the rooftops rising higher and higher the further “downtown” they got, though the low, mountainous spires sometimes made that difficult to determine. Everything seemed to be made out of the same stone and was surprisingly clean. Not a rubbish heap in sight. Still, it was easy to tell where the status changed over: the buildings’ architecture got just that little bit more elaborate, more ornamented, just that little bit bigger, the streets just a little bit wider and smoother. And as they got closer to the pipe-organ building that rose above the skyline like it was making a statement, Clint saw things that he could have sworn looked just like the gun turrets from _Star Wars._

Which certainly put Tony’s little speech from the debriefing into a whole new perspective.

No one looked up at the boats, but heads were certainly turning as Tony passed, jets thrumming through the air quite unlike the boats’ near-silent purring. When they finally arrived at the pipe-organ building and came abreast with an opening in the wall, people were openly staring. Tony took the opportunity to do his customary Iron Man landing and stood around Looking Regal and Dignified while the rest of the team rolled their eyes and clambered out of the boats like regular mortals. 

Thor took the lead, waving a hand at the team to follow him. Clint was starting to feel strangely self-conscious. Everyone else here was in armor, flowing capes, flowing dresses—like the Avengers had suddenly walked into a giant Tolkien-meets-Steampunk-and-turned-Viking cosplay event. Clothing which fit and melded with the grand stone columns and giant vaulted ceiling seamlessly, and here they were in their spandex-Kevlar uniforms, the wheels on Bruce’s luggage clipping as they rolled over the cracks between the flagstones and Tony’s suit creaking and each of his steps echoing in the ceiling like a giant bell. 

At the end of the hall in a wide column of light sat a huge golden throne— _seriously_ , what was _with_ these people and huge and gold?! Didn’t they have any other decorating schemes?—where a man that could only be the Allfather sat. He exuded regalness without seeming to try. 

Thor halted at the base of the steps leading up to the throne and placed his right fist to his left shoulder, bowing slightly at the waist. “Father, I have returned.”

“It is good to see you well,” Odin said, inclining his head in a small nod. “Heimdall has kept me appraised of events on Midgard. You fought a great many foes.”

Thor straightened. “I only came to the aid of my friends, friends who I have had the fortune to make my shield-mates.” _That_ sent a tither all through the room, whispers and exclamations spreading like wild fire, too numerous to get a good lock on any one. Odin himself said nothing. “Father, may I present the Warriors of Midgard.” Thor stepped off to the side and rattled off their names and SHIELD codenames like they were titles of state, which was…weird. Each of the Avengers nodded in turn when their name was called, Tony flipping up his faceplate to give his obligatory smirk and wave at the crowd—crowds were the same all over, it seemed. Thankfully, Tony kept his mouth shut. 

When Thor finished, Odin stood. “Walk with me.”

The Avengers followed as Odin set off down a side corridor, Tony cranking and creaking along. 

“I am told it is thanks to you that Loki was brought back with such relative ease,” Odin said when they had turned a corner. 

“I’m not sure I would say it was easy,” Steve demurred at the head of the group. “Your son can pack quite a punch.”

“And so you have become shield-mates for your trouble.” Odin’s tone was neither approving, disproving, nor anything really. Just the flat, factual tone of politicians playing close to their chest. “Has my son made aware to you what this means in regards to Loki’s trial?”

“I have,” Thor answered. 

“We’re happy to help in any way we can,” Steve supplied. 

“Hmm,” was all Odin said. 

“Father…there is something else.”

Odin sighed as they came upon an open-aired sitting area. “There always is.”

“Agent Barton has become shield-mates with Loki.”

Odin halted then. Turned slowly to look at Clint. Clint fidgeted a bit under the heavy gaze, glanced at the city beyond the railing of the balcony before looking at the Allfather. His lone eye was roaming over Clint’s face as if his entire history was written there for all to see. 

“Not by choice,” Clint felt compelled to point out. 

“One does not become a shield-mate by choice,” Odin said. “It merely happens.”

“Loki said something about the Norns playing games.”

The corner of Odin’s mouth twitched even as his eye seemed to flicker with grief. “Loki has never believed in coincidence.”

Clint raised an eyebrow. “And these Norns are..?”

“The Norns are the three entities who care for Yggdrasil and the Nine Realms,” Thor explained. “There are some who say they were not only the first to learn how manipulate fate but are perhaps Fate themselves. The _volur_ work in their favor.”

“They are also very much active in the lives of those in the Nine Realms. I myself have seen their direct intervention. Perhaps,” Odin said, gazing quietly at Clint, “they have indeed done this.”

He closed his eye and gave himself a little shake before turning and continuing to walk. “And perhaps they have not. The Nine Realms are vast and not everything happens from intent. Thor, come with me.”

Thor rubbed at his brow and waved at the sitting area. “If you would wait for me here, friends. Hopefully, I will be but a moment.”

\------------------------------------------

Thor caught up with his father as Odin turned down a walkway, his red cape swirling around his ankle from the turbulence of his steps. They walked in silence except for the slight thumping of Gungnir against the stone.

“You have much pain ahead of you,” said Odin.

“There is much pain behind me.”

“They are mortal.”

Thor nodded. “I know.”

“They will live barely a tenth of your life.”

“Do not think me _unaware,_ Father. I may not have chose this, but I do not regret it. I refuse to.”

Odin humphed. 

There was more silence. 

“How is Mother?”

“Better. Now that Loki has been found alive.”

Thor took a breath. “The coming days will be trying for her.”

Gungnir thumped beside him. 

\------------------------------------------

Clint was sitting down on one of the benches, watching Steve try to contain Tony and Bruce while the two scientists took chemical scans of the building’s rock with the suit. Nat hovered beside him, keeping an eye on the surroundings and each member of the team. Clint suspected that if she were a dog, she’d be gently herding them. He glanced up when Thor walked back into the sitting area.

“Things alright with Daddy?” he asked. 

Thor ran a hand through his hair then shrugged. “As well as they can be at the moment. Let us find you accommodations and some food.”

Steve sighed in relief and once again dragged Tony and Bruce down the hall after Thor.

Thor paused to speak with someone they passed—a servant, Clint was guessing, eyeing their clothes and deferential posture. Thor thanked them and beckoned at the team. “I’ve requested a wing for you. Food should arrive there around the time we do.”

The walk seemed to take forever. Advanced space Vikings with beaming technology and they couldn’t come up with an elevator? How did that make _any_ sense? That, and the fact that this palace was much bigger than it appeared. Between its actual footprint and all the towers, the building had to be the square footage of a football stadium, _at least._ Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like. 

“Here we are,” Thor said finally, flinging open a set of double doors onto yet another hallway. “All the suites in this hall are yours for your stay. Take which ever ones you like.”

Tony immediately took the first one on the right and stepped out of the suit with a grateful sigh, shrugging his shoulders around to work out kinks. Bruce wheeled the Science! luggage into the suite across the hall. The rest of the team just took suits systematically. They all looked the same, so it really wasn’t much different from any Earth hotel and Clint didn’t care where he slept so long as it wasn’t rock-hard or the ground. He was not on a mission and that was the only place he put up with that. Most of his childhood had been spent with nothing but a sleeping bag. He preferred a real bed, thanks. 

Clint heard footsteps as he was slinging his duffel bag onto the bed. Poking his head out into the hall, he say a stream of people carrying covered platters and what looked distinctly like a barrel. “Is that alcohol?” he asked, striding up to Thor as he directed the stream into one of the empty suites. “Please let that be alcohol.”

Thor chuckled. “That, friend Clint, is a cask of some of the best mead Asgard has to offer.”

“No kidding?” Tony asked, popping up behind Clint, who jumped. 

He glared at Tony. “Since when do you have ninja skills? You shouldn’t _have_ ninja skills.”

Tony just grinned at him, clapped him on the shoulder, and strode into the room to sprawl over one of the couches. “So, what do we have here?” He began lifting covers off platters while the rest of the team filed in and the stream of servants slowly disappeared.

The platters were full of various kinds of meat, prepared various ways but all of it hot, bread, honey, cheese, and assorted vegetables, some cooked but a few left raw. The mead had already been thoughtfully poured into tankards. The team fell to with a will. They hadn’t eaten since…well, without an actual sun here it was difficult to tell really, but it _felt_ like a long time. Their stomachs certainly thought so. 

The mead was good. 

_Really_ good. 

“So,” Tony asked as he refilled his tankard, “we’re in Asgard. Now what?”

“It will be a day or two before my brother’s trial can begin,” Thor said, popping what looked like a piece of candied carrot into his mouth. “Notifications will need to go out to all of Asgard, and as he is a prince, some must be sent to the other Realms as well.”

“Just how do trials work here?” Steve asked. He was still eating. Clint was impressed. He and Thor were the only ones still shoveling away. The rest of the team had surrendered to their cushions with the mead long ago. “Does Asgard have a jury structure or something like that?”

Thor tilted his head to the side. “On Asgard, all suits are tried before meetings of the local Thing, and the whole body casts a vote after all evidence and testimony has been presented. If there is a tie or some set of unusual circumstances, a council of elders will make the defining verdict. Loki is still a prince and many of his crimes were against Asgard herself, so his trial will be before a special session of the Althing—thus the need for a notification period. Also, I suspect that the Grand Council will most likely be the ones making the verdict, as a vote from all citizens of Asgard would be an unwieldly thing to conduct on this matter.”

“And our part?” Bruce asked. “What role are we supposed to play in all this?”

“As firsthand witnesses, you will be called on to provide crucial testimony. You do not need to argue for or against my brother,” Thor clarified, holding up a placating hand at a few of their expressions, “just provide a record of the events and the reasons behind your decisions.”

Bruce looked intrigued. “Why the reasons behind our decisions? That should have very little to do with a factual account.”

Thor scratched at his beard, gazing out the window for a moment. The team waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts. 

“We are a long-lived people, and our civilization has survived many generations. We have seen many terrible things and have done many terrible things.” He gave a small, self-deprecating smile that was almost a wince. “That they were, in fact, terrible was partly what I was banished to Midgard to learn.” Thor gave himself a little shack and looked back at the team. “We have come to recognize that sometimes bad things are done for good reasons, that good people are entirely capable of doing evil with the best of intentions, and that there are some evils are not as bad as others. Because of this recognition, we do not care as much _what_ happened, though it does matter, and instead place a higher value on _why_ it happened. Thus, Loki’s motivations and reasoning will be investigated thoroughly during the trial as well as the reasoning of those others involved, even if they were on the opposite side.” The god rubbed at the back of his neck. “I suspect my actions will be investigated as well. I am not looking forward to it.” 

“So…what?” Tony asked, swinging his empty tankard. “Do you not punish for actions at all then? Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of punishing for intention—there are so many things I wouldn’t have gotten called into court for—but that’s system’s gotta be easy to fool if you don’t punish bad things at all.”

“We do. No matter a person’s intentions, they still committed the act and should take responsibility for all that comes of it.” 

Thor was looking distinctly uncomfortable. He kept shifting slightly in his seat and throwing Clint glances. Clint didn’t even need the bond. “Just spit it out,” he said. 

“Friend Clint…I feel I should warn you that testimony may be requested of you especially.”

Clint eyed the god warily. “Why?”

“As the shield-mate of my brother, you are the best person to give insight into his mind.”

Dammit, that’s what he thought he’d say. 

“I do not think like your brother.”

Thor shrugged. “But you share a piece of your soul. In all of my brother’s life, you are first to do so, so you obviously are the best person to ask.”

“Doesn’t Loki have other soulmates?” Nat asked. “I find it difficult to believe that someone as long lived as Loki would have gone all that time without gaining a single one.”

Thor looked down at his tankard. Swirled the mead around slowly. It was answer enough.

God _dammit._

“Why drag me into it? Why not just ask the guy himself?” Clint demanded. Though the guy was a trickster. Would there even be any point?

“He will be, rest assured of that. But our truth-spells are, it has been explained to me, not guaranteed to get the full truth. There are ways around them that a wordsmith such as Loki would have no trouble utilizing.”

“You have truth-spells?” Steve asked.

Tony refilled his tankard. “Space Vikings and Magic, Capsicle. _Of course_ they do.” 

“Please, do not worry, friend Clint,” Thor said, reaching over to clap a warm hand on the archer’s shoulder. “Tomorrow we will go ask the scholars about your bond. They will be able to tell us if you can still be controlled through it.” Clint nodded and took an absent sip of mead. Thor gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze and addressed the group as a whole. “Until then, I suggest you take the time to settle in. This world is very different from your own. I have asked for Helka to be assigned to your care. She is a good woman—stout of heart and willing to share it.”

Steve raised a brow. “What about you?”

Thor sighed and drained his tankard. “Coming to Midgard after Loki was a decision of necessity. Now that I have returned, there are duties awaiting me, the chief of which maybe aiding in delivering the notifications to the other realms. I may not be familiar with the paths, but I am one of the few who can fly.”

“Go to it, Point Break,” Tony said. He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I do believe Bruce and I have science to accomplish.”

The entire team—with the exception of Bruce, who was looking just as eager—rolled their eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is my personal headcanon that Odin really does care for his sons. I think there are certain small tells in the movies that attest to this. That said, he also has monumental control and superiority issues, a skewed view of parenting, and a vicious vindictive streak. Which we will get to in the upcoming trial, so if you were looking forward to Odin's A+ Parenting, have no fear, it will be present. I"m just not sure I want to tag the fic as such yet. 
> 
> Up next: space viking science (lots of it) and an archery contest.


	5. In Which Things Are Determined (Once and For All)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay. My reasons: 1) life, 2) my other fic. So here, have a long chapter as recompense.
> 
> Seriously, I JUST told someone that I would try to keep a weekly schedule. WHY DID I JINX IT?
> 
> Thank you for all your comments and support! It means a lot. I'm greatly enjoying all your deductions about why Loki and Clint are soulmates. *no comment*
> 
> ***IMPORTANT***  
> I never thought I'd write this but TRIGGER WARNING: the concept of rape is mentioned in this chapter (but it doesn't go any further than that!)
> 
> Things might get a bit heavy in the middle here. There will be fluff next chapter, I promise.
> 
> Enjoy!

Helka was a robust, rotund-in-a-sturdy-way woman who had the appearance of a matronly forty or so. How old she actually was was anyone’s guess. Clint wasn’t going to be the one to find out. Her hair was auburn with just the slightest hint of mahogany in it, sort of like a bank of embers without the brilliant fluttering glow, and was woven in a loose braid that hung to the small of her back, ending in a copper filigree cap. It framed a heart-shaped face with sparkling hazel eyes just beginning to sport crow’s feet and laugh lines. 

She was perfectly happy to sit with them in the common suite and answer every question Tony and Bruce threw at her. Apparently she was a mage herself with an affinity for healing magics and that just opened the floodgates for Bruce. During the brief periods when the two scientists were busy tapping away at tablets or arguing over how some tidbit did or did not match up with Earth science, the rest of the team got to ask questions about how Asgard worked. Like, for instance, where the bathrooms were and whether or not space Vikings had indoor plumbing. 

They did—thank god—because while their technology might be modeled off the low tech version, it was still advanced enough to operate on principles that made Tony’s eyes cross. So while they didn’t exactly have an Earth toilet, they did have a waste transportation and filtration system that saved more water and energy by itself than Earth’s typical example of a first world country—another thing that made Tony’s and Bruce’s eyes shine. 

Steve and Natasha took this as an opportunity to follow through on Fury’s orders, asking questions about Asgard’s politics, relations with the other realms, if inter-realm trade existed and how it worked, and how the general Asgardian saw the various other realms to see if there was any way Earth could begin to work itself into the framework. 

It turned out that the Nine Realms functioned similarly to a republic. Put roughly: Alfheim was apparently the seat of all culture that was any culture and flaunted their bohemian-ness. Vanaheim was the bread basket though they were also known for their stone quarries and warrior guilds. Nidavellir was the industrial hub and Nifleheim was the realm of the dead—yeah, Clint wasn’t going to get over that anytime soon. Next to nothing came out of Muspelheim besides the occasional large shipment of minerals—though many things that were sold through Nidavellir were actually made in Muspelheim but not, let it be said, by the inhabitants of Muspelheim so it was only kinda like China. Svartalfheim and Earth were the ignored backwaters as the first was empty and virtually destroyed down to the bedrock and the second was full of humans who, until Thor’s banishment there, had been kinda like monkeys—cute and quaint but not quite people. Jotunheim had the dubious pleasure of being below those two, seen as nothing more than a ball of ice inhabited by the savage remnants of a dying race, while Asgard was essentially the universe’s Washington DC. It was where the bureaucracy of administration happened and the majority of the Nine Realms’ military activity and training took place, but each realm otherwise had its own political system and “ruler” or governor, and was given what amounted to complete autonomy within its borders. 

The only time the realms worked as a republic under the banner of Asgard and the Allfather was in inter-realm law or the rare case not covered by those that affected all the realms. Inter-realm law, however, covered quite a bit: major trade relationships (not individual merchants but more the general flow of goods from one realm to another), criminal law such as who had jurisdiction over who if the criminal was from a different realm, military treaties and truces, and basic immigration law. 

As Loki was from Asgard but had perpetrated major crimes on Earth, his trial fell under the jurisdiction of inter-realm law. Thus, representatives of Earth had to be present, so the Avengers were actually killing two birds with one stone, being both witnesses and representatives. This was also why notifications had to go out to all the realms, though the fact that he was a prince seemed to the biggest factor there. Helka also mentioned—nearly as an afterthought—that Loki had also committed crimes on Jotunheim, but when Nat asked if Frost Giant representatives would be at the trial, Helka had just laughed. 

After having gotten the important matters like personal hygiene and comfort out of the way, Clint mainly kept silent. When Tony and Bruce had first paused in their onslaught to argue about what sounded like electricity and some process called “doping”, Helka had given him a _look_ , the kind the nurses at medical gave him when he was trying to get out of something, and made him a mug of tea that tasted like honey and vaguely flowery. For the rest of the conversation, he sat in the corner of the couch, clutching the mug to his face so that the steam curled languidly against his eyelids, taking the occasional sip. It helped keep the migraines at bay. His head _ached._ Like a muscle kept tensed too long. Any moment now it felt like the strain would get to be too much and he’d have to let it go or implode—either way, his bonds would be unblocked and there would be absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Dammit, it hadn’t been like this before. He’d been able to keep his two bonds blocked for days—his record with both Nat and Phil had been a little over twenty-three days and when it had been just Phil, he’d once kept it blocked for a month and a half—with no adverse side effects besides the typical headache that came with any kind of prolonged mind-link activity. 

Of course, this was no longer just two bonds. There were six of the damn things now, and five of them were brand spanking new, which meant his mind was still rearranging itself around them. Of _course_ trying to block them all wholesale was going to hurt like a motherfucker. 

If Loki had appeared in front of him just then, Clint would have had absolutely no problem driving his spoon through his brain, except that that seemed like way too much work and he was starting to feel like he was twenty-five miles into a marathon and the finish line was nowhere in sight. 

He came back to himself with a jolt when he felt cool fingers touching his temple. Helka was leaning over him, concern wrinkling her brow. “You do not need to tax yourself,” she said. 

Clint shook his head. “Nah, this is my job too. I just zoned out for a bit.”

She eyed him for a moment, then sighed and held out her hand for his mug. “Let me get you a stronger brew then. This one is only meant to soothe.”

“Do you have any coffee?” Clint asked, handing the mug over. “Cause I could really go for some coffee right now.”

“That is an excellent question, I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it,” Tony said. “Does Asgard have coffee? Please tell me you have coffee. Or any kind of hot beverage with caffeine in it.”

“Caffeine is a stimulant that can reduce physical fatigue and drowsiness for a limited time,” Bruce elaborated. They’d had to explain other Earth terms to Helka before, as Asgard had its own dictionary of jargon that Allspeak couldn’t always translate. “Overdose can lead to jittery nerves, inability to fall asleep, and headaches.”

Helka considered that as she cleaned out Clint’s mug, refilled it, and dropped in a different pouch of herbs. “Yes,” she finally decided. “We have something similar. It is generally only used as a performance aid in times when that is necessary. It can be a rather bitter drink.”

Bruce nodded. “That sounds fairly close.”

“Great! Can we get it with breakfast?” Tony asked.

Clint thanked Helka with a smile as she handed the mug back to him. She nodded back then looked at Tony in askance. “You wish to drink it as a normal beverage?”

Just the smell of the tea was making Clint feel better. He sipped it as Tony tried to convince Helka of the normalcy of his request while Nat chipped in with helpful sarcastic remarks. Eventually, Helka agreed to have a small pot sent with breakfast and the conversation returned to a discussion of whether or not Earth had any tech that Asgard didn’t. Weirdly—or not, depending on how one looked at it—this appeared to be communication technology. Yes, humans’ lasting contribution to the universe was TV and cellphones. 

Clint didn’t feel like he really had anything to add to the conversation so he didn’t. Instead, he leaned his head back against the couch and drank his tea. The latest migraine was actually receding instead of merely looming. He closed his eyes and wallowed in relief. 

The next time he opened his eyes, he was in his own suite and it was morning. 

And he desperately needed to pee.

Clint clambered his way out of the Viking-sized bed and sought out what was definitely a water-closet instead of a toilet. When he walked back out to the hall, the sound of chatter emanated from the common suite, so he stalked to the door. The rest of the team sat around a table full of steaming platters: meat, of course, but also porridge with candied fruit and what looked like but couldn’t possibly be pancakes. Helka was bustling about filling mugs with tea. Goddamn that woman and her tea.

Clint glared at her when she looked up at his footstep. “You drugged me.”

“Yes,” she said with no remorse. 

_“Why?”_

Giving the pot to Bruce, she strode over and caught his chin in the patented medical I’m-here-to-help-not-care-for-you grip, turning his head from side to side, scrutinizing everything. “You mortals,” she murmured to herself, “worse than the _einherjar._ It’s like you deliberately don’t know how to take care of yourselves.”

She then tugged him to the table by his chin, pushed him into an empty seat and preceded to load his plate with one of everything, much to the team’s amusement. 

“Eat,” she ordered. 

“But _why?_ Besides the obvious,” he added. 

“Your companions explained the situation to me after I sent you to bed. You’re draining your resources by trying to barricade so many new bonds, and so absolutely. You’re like a new colt, trying to run before having true control over his legs. And don’t try to lie to me, mortal,” she added as Clint opened his mouth. “I can see the tension in your mental pathways. Your resources were strained almost to their limits last night. If you didn’t sleep, you would have had a seizure.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Steve asked in the Captain America Is Disappointed In You, Son voice. Nat just glared daggers at him across the table. Clint refused to squirm. 

“I never did,” Tony offered. 

“Thank you, Tony,” Clint said.

Steve tossed the engineer a confused look but Nat actually tossed her spoon at his ear. “You are not a good role model.”

Bruce handed the spoon back to Nat. “Guys, it’s not really our place to say what Clint does or does not do with his health. It’s his body and mind, it’s his right.” He turned to Helka. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but do you mean you can see individual neurons with magic?”

Helka waited until Clint picked his fork and started poking at his food before asking Bruce to explain what he meant by neuron.

Clint ignored them because with that first bite, he realized just how absolutely ravenous he was. As he shoveled pancakes and cream into his mouth, he wondered if the telepaths back home ate as much as Steve did. The thought was mildly disturbing. 

When he finished, Helka silently refilled his plate and he attacked that too as if he hadn’t eaten the first one. 

He had come in halfway through breakfast, so by the time he finished only Steve was still going; the rest of the team nursed mugs of tea or, in Tony’s case, something that definitely smelled like coffee. Coffee that Helka was steadfastly keeping away from him. “Your mind doesn’t need any interference right now.” And she handed him a giant mug of tea. Seriously, the thing was like the size of Thor’s head. 

She turned to address the team as a whole. “Prince Thor has informed me that you wish to speak to some scholars about the mechanics of bonding and the principles of magic. Does this still hold true?”

The team nodded. 

“Then I will arrange it. In the meantime, I highly suggest that your friend get medically examined. We have machines here in Asgard that can examine the bonds themselves, as well as healers trained for psychic healing. I can see the damage, but my abilities lie in physical healing.”

“Again?” Clint whined. He’d just done this four days ago. So what if Asgard was more advanced. He’d never liked going to medical. They poked and prodded and the whole thing was just a pain the ass and enforced boredom. 

Nat nudged him with her shoulder. “They could tell us definitively if the bond is real.”

“I thought we already knew that.”

“We know that Loki thinks it’s real.”

Clint had to concede the point. 

Half an hour and what felt like a mile walk later, Clint was lying on a table watching a hologram made of glowing dust motes dance above him. In the beginning it had shown what was easily recognizable as his body, but then it had dome some truly nauseating twisting thingy and now it was a giant 3D web that made maps of the New York subway look like a kid’s hopscotch. 

The Asgardian medic manipulating the holographic controls was introduced as the Lady Eir, Chief Healer of all Asgard—apparently being Thor’s soulmate came with perks—and looked like a spry seventy-year-old with curly hair the same length and style as Helka’s and a face that promised she would brook no nonsense. She listened silently as first Helka then the Avengers explained the situation and the reasons that had led to it, sometimes suddenly zooming in on a section of the hologram. 

When they finished, she twisted her fingers in the controls and the glowing dust motes flew apart and recoalesced into a roiling mass of streamers that flowed sluggishly as if moving through molasses, occasionally changing course, sometimes whirling around in eddies like a tornado or losing themselves in pockets of turbulence and mayhem that popped into existence in the middle of a streamer, jumbling everything for as long as they cared to before order reasserted itself. 

Eir pursed her lips as she studied the streamers. “Unblock your bonds.”

Clint eyed her through a gap. “Why?”

“You wish to determine if the bond with Prince Loki is true. I cannot do that when I cannot see it.” 

Taking a deep breathe, Clint steeled himself—a streamer to the left twisted, its flow going to a tortoise crawl but steady—and unblocked his soulbonds. Affectionate worry and concern washed over his mind. Except for Thor’s, which was near bored to petrification; the god must be a meeting. And the one bond he was resolutely ignoring. 

The change in the hologram was immediate. The sluggishness vanished. It looked like the streamers had been jumpstarted, dust motes moving like they were made of lightning. Most of the turbulent areas disappeared and though a few still sprung up here and there, they didn’t remain for as long as before. Some new streamers even popped into existence leading off to the sides, vanishing from view as they crossed the edges of the table. One of these, heading roughly in Nat’s direction, was finger-width, deep and steady, while the other five were palm-sized and moved with ADHD frenzy, the dust motes zipping back and forth along the streamers just a little slower than a kindergartener on coffee running for cake. And then there was one streamer that branched off like it knew where it was going but never made it to the edge of the table and dust motes kept falling off its sides to join a different streamer. 

It made Clint’s heart break to look at it for too long so he didn’t.

“Right then.” Eir manipulated the controls a bit more, zooming in on certain sections, rotating others for a better look. “Helka is absolutely right. If you continue to block your bonds, you will suffer a seizure within the next thirty-six hours. It won’t damage much, but if you disregard that one and continue to block them—and if you choose to do so you will be exhibiting the brain capacity of a wounded _bilgesnipe_ and I have absolutely no sympathy for you—then you will suffer another seizure twenty-eight hours after the previous one that will leave you with loss of motor function if not the mind of a child.”

Clint blinked.

Well. 

Eir tilted her head to the side in a nod. “Normally, blocking bonds does not command such dire consequences, but all but one of these bonds is new and your mind is still healing from not only the trauma of losing a bond but also that of rape. That compounds things ten-fold.”

Wait wait wait, hold on, _what_ now?

The rest of the team stiffened like they had been hit with a comic-book freeze-ray. Even their bonds froze for a moment as they digested that little word bomb. 

“Excuse me?” Clint asked incredulously. _“Rape?”_

“Yes. Any act that violates a person’s body, mind, or soul without their consent is rape.” Eir zoomed in on a streamer that flowed out and down toward an empty corner of the room, highlighting small, frail-looking loops and fuzzy bulbs around its junction with the main mass of streamers, continuing along both sides for a length. “You can see the lesions left behind by the bond’s creation. Normally, these would make the bond unstable and once the agent behind the creation has been removed, they would cause the bond to break away and disintegrate. Except here, they are healing.” Even as they watched, one of the bulbs slowly deflated, smoothing out into the streamers, the addition of its dust motes bolstering the flow around it. “In other words, they are healing as if they were induced by any other soul-trauma.”

“Does that mean…” Steve asked, voice uncertain.

“Yes. The bond between Clint Barton and Prince Loki is true.”

Clint closed his eyes, his hands curling into hard fists. Nat shifted beside his head as her bond coursed with affection, sympathetic sorrow—and a hint of steely bloodlust. It almost made him smile. That was what friends were for: murdering the people who hurt you with their boot heel.

When he flicked his eyes back open, Eir was watching him. “I am a powerful mage in my own right, but my field lies in the intricacy of healing, and you are only the fourth forced bond to have crossed my path in three thousand four hundred years, and you are certainly the first for which it has been used for mind-control. I cannot tell you if it can still be used for such.”

Clint nodded dully. He hadn’t expected that information from her to begin with. 

Lady Eir pursed her lips again and dismissed the hologram with a twitch of her fingers, the dust-motes dissolving into the air like summer fireworks. Clint sat up, scrubbed his face with one hand as he once again reblocked the bonds. Thirty-six hours before catatonia, countdown begins now.

As he swung his legs out over the side of the table, Eir caught his eyes and locked on to them with an intensity that demanded nothing less than his full attention. “Clint Barton, mortal. This was rape. What was done to you was not your fault and affects your very being. It is perfectly natural to want to be rid of it.” 

Clint’s jaw clenched. Unbidden, the memory of just how easy it had been for Loki to take control of his fucking mind rose to the surface with a soiling sneer. 

“There are no excuses,” Eir said, eyes boring into his own. “Prince Loki is his own person. You have no control over his actions just as you have no control over those of Jörmungandr. No one will blame you for it—and if they do, they are lower than skit and do not deserve their honor.”

Looking at Lady Eir’s face, something tight in Clint’s chest deflated, leaving him with a woozy, loose feeling in his gut, simultaneously like he could take on the world and like all he wanted to do was melt to the floor in a boneless heap. 

Clint gave her a stiff nod, hands gripping the edge of the table reflexively. The corners of her eyes crinkled briefly, then she turned, nodded her farewells to Helka and the team and vanished out the door. 

The room felt suddenly much larger and colder without her presence and Clint found himself shivering. Before he could blink, Nat was there giving him one of her extremely rare, barely-seen-once-a-leap-year hugs. Clint did blink, caught off-guard, then closed his eyes and let himself sag into it. Not surprisingly but very much not-expectedly, Tony was suddenly wrapping both the assassins in bear hug. It didn’t take much longer for Steve and Bruce to join in and Clint Barton, Hawkeye found himself at the center of the Avengers’ first group hug. 

It should have been suffocating. All of them, even astonishingly Bruce and Tony, had muscles made from steel and this hug was not a gentle one—it was full-on we will crush your soul out with our love. It should have been claustrophobic. 

Strangely, it wasn’t. 

Sometime later on, the door opened and a few quiet words were exchanged. The door closed again and Helka coughed politely. “Queen Frigga would like a moment of your time.”

That caught their attention.

Tony’s head popped up. “What? Here?”

“It is sufficiently private.”

The team looked at each other, then slowly unwound from the hug, though Nat kept one arm around Clint’s waist. Helka waited for them to finish fussing over their appearance before opening the door, and the Queen of the Realm Eternal came into the examination room. 

Her face was mature, but beyond that, ageless. Her hair was also curly and long, as per the norm here, done up in some intricate braid around her head. Her clothing was not much different from Helka’s or Lady Eir’s, except that perhaps it used a touch more fabric, and she wore no jewelry or crown but there was no mistaking who this woman was. If Odin exuded regalness, Frigga Allmother embodied it.

“Avengers,” she said with a small smile. “Please, be at ease. This is not a formal audience.”

Steve settled into a parade rest and inclined his head in a formal greeting. “Then, if you don’t mind my asking, Majesty, what is this?”

“I wanted to thank you for helping to return my son to me.” Her expression didn’t change as Steve’s spin stiffened just a tad. Bruce glanced around nervously while Nat stared the alien queen down. Tony’s face was unreadable and his gaze unflinching. Frigga met it solidly. “I realize that he is the enemy who tried to enslave your world, but I thought he was long lost to me.”

“Thor told us he was supposed to have been dead,” Tony said.

Frigga’s mouth stretched sadly. “Yes. When last I saw him, he had recently learned some truths we had kept from him, truths that I did not adequately explain. Events spun out of control and before we could truly talk, he was gone.”

Tony snapped his fingers. “Right. He’s adopted.”

“Among other things. Thank you, mortals, for giving me the chance to at the very least apologize, as I am beginning to see that I may not be able to make it right.” 

“Have you talked to him?” Steve asked.

“I have visited him, yes.” Frigga looked aggrieved. “Odin has ordered him to a cell until the trial can decide on a verdict. At least he had the decency to allow the healers to examine him and treat his injuries, and remove that horrendous muzzle so that he may eat.”

Bruce was looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Ah…about that…It was necessary…”

“Do not worry, mortal. I have seen my sons with many grievous injuries, much more than the cuts and scrapes he carries now.” For a moment, the Queen was replaced by the exasperated mother of two boys who insisted on harrying off with pointy objects. “You were in battle. These things are natural consequences. He is not dead, comatose, or bereft of his mind. For these, at least,” she said with a slight pinch to her face, “I can be thankful. Though it is true I would be happier if the restraints were removed.”

“You mean those cuffs that suppress his magic?” Tony quirked a brow. “Why? Wouldn’t he just escape?”

“My son has never retreated in the face of adversity in all his long life, Man of Iron. As for the restraints…you are mortal and seem unfamiliar with magic. If you will permit me then—the magic that Loki and I wield is different from that of Thor’s or Odin’s. Theirs is bestowed on them by the objects that recognize them as master and can be removed or revoked with no damage or indeed little inconvenience. However, Loki’s and mine are our birthright. It is as much a part of us as our bones and we use it as if it were one of our limbs. Suppressing it is possible, yes, but it is analogous to temporary amputation and while the restraints are in effect, it is essentially an open wound. Constantly bleeding.” She pursed her lips. “It is not pleasant.”

“That explains his reaction,” Bruce murmured. And Thor’s, Clint thought. 

“And possibly why he was so testy,” Steve added. Tony waved that one off. 

“But on to lighter subjects.” Frigga ran an eye over the group with smile. “Thor tells me that you have become his shield-mates. I have also heard many whispers of it through the halls.”

Steve nodded. “Yes, ma’am. It is an honor. Your son is a good man.” He shuffled slightly, glanced at the rest of the team furtively. “Ah, is that all you’ve heard?”

Frigga looked amused. Like she would have very much like to pat Steve on the head and chuck his chin. 

Her eyes drifted to Clint’s and held them, though in a much softer hold than Lady Eir’s. Nat’s fingers curled around his hip in a patently protective manner. It allowed him to meet the gaze without flinching. 

The Allmother smiled. A quiet, pained little thing, there and then gone. “The coming days will be difficult for you,” she said softly. _“Svá hjálpi þér hollar véttir.”_ She nodded to the team and left. 

Clint looked at Helka questioningly. 

“‘So may the mild Powers help you,’” she translated. “Now if you want to follow me, the scholars have agreed to meet with you.”

With nothing else to do, the team did just that. Nat still refused to give up her grip on his waist, so Clint slung an arm over her shoulders as they walked out the door. They only relinquished their hold when they arrived in a lounge room so they wouldn’t trip trying to sit, but the seats were couches about the size of a loveseat, so Nat soon had her hip bumped up against his. It was nearly as good as having the bond open. 

In the couch to their left sat two wizened old wizards—there really was no other word to describe them. What looked like Dumbledore when he had still been played by Richard Harris and Gandalf sat side by side sharing a flask of mead, though obviously not so British. For Dumbledore, that amounted to no hat or glasses, wearing his hair in a long white braid, and instead of silk brocade his robes were made of the same alien mix of linen and metallic fabric that seemed to be the staple here. The sleeves were just as full, though. Gandalf’s robes were a little more practical and had mud speckled up their knees like he’d just come in from a long walk. His hair was also braided, much more compactly than Dumbledore’s, and his beard was wound tight by a leather thong with a twisted knot pendant. Their faces were those of any old curmudgeon that had been alive since the dawn of time—wrinkled like a baked apple. Clint eyed their hands warily. Ink-stained they might be, but they were not the hands of pencil-pushers. These wizards were dangerous. He’d bet money on it. 

The couches were arranged in a loose circle around a sunken fire pit where a bed of embers glowed contentedly. Nat and Clint shared one while the two scientists took up another, leaving their fearless leader to take the couch directly opposite the two wizards. 

“Mortals of Midgard, these are Hoenir Lore-Keeper and Mimir Dreki-Friend,” Helka said, pointing to Dumbledore first, then Gandalf. “If you will excuse me?” She bowed briefly to the two wizards, nodded her farewells to the Avengers and left. 

Tony turned to the old wizards and raised a brow. “ _Dreki_ -friend? Like, as in, _dragon_?”

“It was really more of a wyrm,” Mimir grumbled. “The story became warped throughout the telling.”

Yup. Totally called it. 

Hoenir chuckled warmly. “And when you were younger, you helped with that.”

“I was young and stupid. Now, tell us you who all are, besides a group of mortal warriors.” Introductions rolled around the room till all the Avengers were accounted for. Mimir took a long draught of mead then scrutinized them all with his glittering stare. “Hmm, and you are the ones who brought our little _hrafn_ back, are you?”

A lightbulb went off behind Bruce’s eyes. “You tutored him, didn’t you?”

Hoenir nodded. “Indeed we did. I tutored him in magic while the Queen taught him the use of his _seiðr_. Mimir taught him the things kings should know if they don’t want to be deposed. He was a bright pupil, wanted to know _everything.”_

“It was refreshing,” Mimir said. “Most of the blockheads here want nothing more than to swing a sword at something and sing of glory. Very few want to write the songs themselves, or delve into the intricacies of politics or philosophic nuances. I fear for our realm.”

“You say that all the time,” Hoenir said cheerfully, “especially when you’ve been into the mead.”

“So would you if you ever got out of your library and traveled with me.”

“If I wanted to accompany you, old friend, I have many spells at my disposable that still allow me the comfort of a warm fire.”

“Did you teach Thor as well?” Bruce asked, ever the diffuser. 

Mimir humphed. “As much as that boy wanted to be taught.”

Bruce winced. “He did acknowledge that he didn’t know very much when we asked him earlier.”

“Did he now? Well I suppose some progress is better than none.”

Hoenir looked at them over his cup rim. “Obviously, you must have questions the Prince was unable to answer. Particularly as that one,” he said, pointing to Clint, “has his bonds blocked and one trails off toward the dungeons.”

Nat threw the wizard a glare that promised death.

“How do you know that?” Steve asked.

Hoenir shrugged. “Tis easy enough to see once one develops the knack for it. So, what is it that has you all so worried?”

Steve took a breath, glanced at Clint, then put his Captain America face on. “When Loki came to Earth, he used ¬¬¬the Mind Gem to turn some of our people into loyal minions.” That made the old wizards sit up in their seats. Apparently, the circumstances around Loki’s return had not gone further than Heimdall and the royal family. 

“Where in the Nine did he get that?” Mimir demanded.

Hoenir hushed him. “The mortals are not done, friend. I take it the archer was one of these.”

Clint tucked his hands into his pockets, frowning at the old wizard. No one had ever noticed his calluses from twelve feet away before. Or at least if they had, they hadn’t correctly identified them. 

“Yes…” Steve said, glancing again at Clint. “Agent Barton was the first Loki took. Loki did give us an answer when we asked how the mind-control worked, but—”

“You are merely mortals and he used many terms you are unfamiliar with. Deliberately, no doubt,” Mimir added with a reluctant chuckle. “The little _snarari._ ”

“What did he tell you?” Hoenir asked.

“That it ‘mimicked the effects of _óðr_ by superseding the subject’s _munr_ and _hugr_ with the wielder’s own’,” Nat recited. “Which was ‘easy to manipulate with magic and _seiðr_ ’.”

“Interesting.” Hoenir tugged on the end of his beard, staring off at the far wall. 

“Prince Thunder was able to explain a bit,” Tony put in, “but he couldn’t say much and he didn’t know anything about the othur thing.” 

Hoenir wrinkled his nose at Tony’s pronunciation much like Thor had. “I know a little of _óðri_ so I can remedy that.”

“‘A little’,” Mimir huffed. “You’re the foremost scholar on the subject.”

Hoenir waved that aside as irrelevant. “ _Óðr_ is one of the universal forces, alongside that of gravity and creation. However, it can be difficult to define, as it affects both material and immaterial alike and its effects are wide-ranging. It is the force that possesses a berserker during battle yet it is also the force that has sparked some of the greatest poetry and philosophy. In these arenas, it can be notoriously fickle, though the berserkers have developed some sort of hereditary trait that makes it more accessible. The _volur_ , however, are in the throes of it whenever they look through time, and they do this on a quite regular basis. As in regards to control of another’s mind through forcing a soulbond…now that is interesting.” Hoenir’s eyes gleamed as he thought.

Mimir rolled his eyes and refilled his mead cup.

“True _óðr_ does not ‘control’ the subject’s actions,” Hoenir said eventually, “but from the accounts I have collected over the years and the few times I have experienced it personally, it does infuse the subject’s very being, mind and body. At times this can be overwhelming, at others it’s little more than a nudge, but in either case it can ‘direct’ the subject to actions or lines of thought that would ordinarily not have occurred to them, sometimes rather violently. There is the sense of another agency behind it.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up. “We’re not talking about religious ecstasy, are we?”

“Yes, I have heard it called that. However, religion has nothing to do with it.”

Bruce tapped a finger to his chin. “So perhaps more like divine inspiration, then. Especially if we use the old definition of inspire as ‘the immediate influence of God’.”

Clint scowled. 

“If what Loki says is correct—and I have no doubt that it is, he was always a bright boy,” Hoenir added, “then the Mind Gem essentially implants and integrates the wielder’s mind and intentions to that of the subject and uses that link to move the subject like one would a puppet. It’s a very crude approximation of _óðr_.”

“Damn difficult to do,” Mimir said. “Especially if you attempt to control multiple people. Such mental fragmentation could have lasting effects, not to mention the immediate cost of such a move.”

“What would those be?” Steve asked.

“Well, you are essentially spreading your ‘self’ or ‘identity’ around different bodies,” Hoenir said, “like trying to hold the leads of a pack of hounds with your mind, with each wanting to go their own way. So among other things like pounding headaches, vision deterioration, and all the symptoms of malnourishment, I would imagine a certain amount of confusion would arise. How did Loki seem to you?”

“Unhinged,” Tony offered with a smile. 

Hoenir nodded. “This could easily account for that. Of course, not just anyone would be able to do this. The wielder would have to have _seiðr_ at their disposal to help keep the soulbond in place and functioning without reducing the subject’s mind to rubble and magic to manipulate them.”

“And Loki is the only person we know of which such traits,” Mimir muttered. Hoenir acknowledge the truth of this with a nod.

“Still,” he said, casting a speculative eye at Clint, “that soulbond should have disintegrated once its foothold was uprooted.”

“That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” Clint grumbled. 

“We would like to know if Loki could still control him through the soulbond,” Steve said. “It’s why Clint’s been blocking his bonds, but Lady Eir says that continuing to do so will endanger his health.”

Mimir waved a hand. “Completely impossible. The forced soulbond is not constructed the same as a true. Whereas in the first the subject’s _munr_ and _hugr_ are superseded by the wielder’s, in a true bond both sides are equal. A true bond cannot be used in that way no more than a goat can be used to illustrate the principles of Alfheim opera.” 

Clint’s fingers clamped onto Nat’s hand.

“That last is up for debate,” Hoenir said with an amused smile. 

“So…I _don’t_ have to keep them blocked?” Clint asked, just to be sure.

“Only if you wish. It does nothing.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. Taking down the barricades was like dynamiting a dam. He collapsed against the couch and just reveled in the flood of mental feedback. Nat’s bond was humming with happiness, Steve’s was a beam of relief, and Bruce and Tony were his steady sun and immovable rock. Thor’s bond froze for a moment, assessing, then beatific joy rippled down it, nearly drowning Clint for a moment though he didn’t care in the least. 

He also got feedback from Loki’s bond—exhaustion tinged with just the slightest edge of pain—but at the moment he didn’t give a damn. He wasn’t going to have to choose between flying monkey or vegetable. He wasn’t going to be working a desk when they went home. Unless—

“Are there side effects if soulmates are in different realms?” he asked, turning his head to look at the two wizards. Occasionally on Earth, there would be the minor case of strain if a soulmate was on the other side of the planet, though those tended to be with new soulmates. He hadn’t heard of anything involving older bonds, but still…

Mimir chuckled. “Thank the Norns, no. Otherwise life would be very difficult indeed.” 

“I am curious,” Hoenir said, staring at Clint like one would a fascinating insect. “I have never heard of a forced soulbond turning true. The only conclusion I can come to is that had you and Loki met under different circumstance, you would have developed a soulbond naturally. The Mind Gem simply spend up the process.”

Clint sighed, his joy dimming, and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “That’s what the bastard said.” 

“Well Loki is not one to lie to himself,” Mimir said. “He has a scholar’s heart.”

“Do you have some idea why the soulbond came true?” Hoenir asked.

“Not at a fucking clue,” Clint growled. “Thor says you have a way to cut soulbonds.”

Both wizards turned piercing gazes on him. It was akin to be scrutinized by hawks—not predatory in the slightest but utterly alien, intense, and sharp. His whole soul laid bare for clinical dissection. 

Nat snuck an arm back around his waist while her bond fed him affection. 

“Yes,” Hoenir said finally. “That does exist.”

“And how exactly does it work?” Tony asked. 

Mimir refilled his and Hoenir’s cups. “It’s no different from how bonds are severed naturally. One of the shield-mates needs to be medically dead for thirty seconds.”

All the Avengers stilled, their bonds turning over in shock. That was not what Clint had been expecting. He thought Asgard—advanced alien space Vikings that they were—would have some magic doohickey thingamabob that they’d invented. This… _Earth_ could do this. 

“They are resuscitated after the required time period,” Mimir continued, “and both parties are fine, though the pain associated with the breaking of a bond still occurs. There is no getting around that.”

Hoenir took a sip of his mead. “Usually by the time a bond-severing becomes truly the only solution, the shield-mates need a third party to help negotiate who will be the one undergoing death. I have seen it go both ways, but normally it is the mate with the least number of bonds, because they will have the easiest time re-establishing them afterwards.”

Mimir pierced Clint with a knowing look over his mead cup. 

“That’s it?” Tony demanded. “You can’t be more precise than that?”

“These are not things that were meant to be tampered with,” Hoenir replied. “They are extensions of your own soul. Death and creation are the only forces that affect such a thing.” He turned back to Clint. “You, archer, are a truly unique case. Even with the miraculous event of a forced bond turning true, I have never seen an individual so in denial of a soulbond.”

“I don’t have to like him.”

“This is true,” Hoenir said with a nod. “But regardless of your preferences, you now share a piece of your soul with Loki. By denying the bond you are denying a piece of yourself.” A light sparked in his eyes. “Ah,” he said with a little smile. “I begin to see.”

Mimir chuckled darkly, a strain of sorrow twisting in that he drowned in mead. 

The door burst open and Thor strode into the room. He practically picked Clint up off the couch with his enthusiastic hug. 

“My friend!” he cried, crushing Clint’s shoulders. “This is excellent! Have you determined that your bond cannot be used against you then?” Clint patted a yield signal on Thor’s bicep, and the god released him with an apologetic laugh, steadying him with a hand as Clint gasped for air. 

“Just so, prince,” Hoenir said.

“They really were helpful,” Steve added. “Thank you,” he said sincerely to the two wizards. 

“I still can’t believe that your way of severing soulbonds is literally no more sophisticated than a club to the head,” Tony said. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be advanced super aliens or something? I mean, your medical devices are basically quantum field generators!”

“And I believe we have already answered that question.” Mimir downed the last of his mead in one go. “Enjoy your celebration.” And with that he swept out of the room, taking the flask with him, nodding absently at Thor when the god bowed deeply to him, right fist over his heart. Hoenir smiled briefly before following his friend. Thor stayed in the bow till the door swung shut behind them, then straightened with a grin. 

“I am glad you have managed to find the answers you seek. Hoenir and Mimir are widely considered the wisest among us—Mimir Dreki-Friend was considered so even when my great-grandfather was a child.”

Bruce stumbled getting up from the couch while Tony sputtered. Clint just rubbed a hand across his eyes. ‘Older than the moon’ wasn’t looking like such an exaggeration anymore.

God, he couldn’t wait to go home. 

“Come!” Thor said, opening the door for them. “I wish to introduce you to my other shield-mates and like Dreki-Friend said, this is the perfect excuse for a celebration.” His grin was infectious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAVE I MENTIONED HOW MUCH I LOVE RESEARCH?
> 
> The blessing Frigga says is from stanza 9 of "The Lament of Oddrun" from the Poetic Edda, which you can find here: http://www.voluspa.org/oddrunargratr.htm. Though the translation I used came from here: http://www.odins-gift.com/pown/oldnorseblessings.htm because I liked it better and thought it fit Frigga and the world better than "holy ones."
> 
> Once again, I take great liberties with Old Norse and Icelandic. If it grinds your teeth, please correct me.
> 
> hrafn -- raven  
> snarari -- twister
> 
> Next: that archery I promised you


	6. In Which Clint Shoots a Lot (And Much Food is Eaten)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cool, guys, 1100+ hits! Thanks for all your support!!

Thor took them to a huge dining room with a long balcony that looked out over the city. In the center of the room, a table the length of one of those hoverboats was full of food platters heaped to excess. Looking at it made Clint realize just how _long_ it had been since breakfast; it was probably well past lunchtime by now. Four Asgardians were already seated on the table’s far side. Clint recognized them from Puente Antiguo, and yes, Agents Garrett and Cole’s nicknames for them had been dead-on. Not that he was ever going to call them that to their faces—that would be as suicidal as calling Nat ‘pootey-pie.’ Tony’s bond was actually considering it, but thankfully he said nothing when Bruce gave him a look. 

The Asgardians stood and greeted Thor warmly, giving the Avengers curious glances. “My friends,” Thor said, “allow me to introduce my newest shield-mates.” 

“We have heard!” Large Gimli said. “You cannot expect that to have been kept quiet.”

“But, mortals, Thor?” Xena asked. 

“Yes,” Thor said simply, face and bond beaming. “This is Captain Steve Rogers, Tony Stark the Man of Iron, Bruce Banner the Hulk, Natasha Romanoff the Black Widow, and Clint Barton the Hawkeye. Together they are the valiant defenders of Midgard. And these,” Thor continued, turning to the team, “are my shield-mates of Asgard: Volstagg the Valiant, Hogun the Grim, the Lady Sif, and Fandral the Dashing.” 

Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif all bowed formally, while Fandral gave such a flamboyant affair Clint couldn’t help but snort. Nat and Tony’s bond were just as amused, but only Tony let it show openly on his face. 

“Together they are called the Warriors Three and Lady Sif, as Sif is too exceptional to be grouped with the rest of us.” Sif rolled her eyes, but smirked as if she totally agreed. “They are stout companions and the best warriors to have at my back.” 

The Asgardians shared a smile full of adolescent mischief. There were stories there. 

Thor put a hand on Steve’s and Clint’s shoulders and pushed them toward the table. “Come, let us celebrate!”

The warriors sat down. “What is the occasion?” Fandral asked. 

Thor clapped Clint heartily on the back and beamed at him. Seriously, the guy was like a two megawatt LED. His happiness was literally almost blinding. Clint was going to need sunglasses for his head if he didn’t want headaches. “Friend Clint’s mind has been proclaimed clear of all outside influence.”

Nat gave Thor an exasperated look. Tony was chuckling at Thor’s wording, while Bruce pinched his nose. The Warriors Three and Lady Sif glanced around as the team took seats. “That is good?” Volstagg said in a very obvious question. 

Steve glanced at Clint, his bond humming a question. Clint sent back a half denial. He didn’t mind sharing the circumstances as it wasn’t exactly a secret, but the rest was not information that needed to come out until absolutely necessary. Lady Eir, Hoenir and Mimir were necessary. These Asgardian, regardless of who their soulmate was, were not. 

Nat wrapped an arm discretely around his waist, and Steve sent a little pulse of warmth as he turned his attention back to the Asgardians. “Clint was mind-controlled by Loki when he tried to invade us.”

“Our technology is not able to examine minds directly like that of Asgard,” Bruce added, “so we couldn’t be completely sure that Loki’s influence was gone.”

The Asgardians gave Clint looks…that kinda rankled, honestly. They were sympathetic, but they were also the same looks teenagers gave to four-year-olds who’d fallen from their bike for the first time and were crying up a storm. Stifling words that were not good for diplomatic relations, Clint shrugged at the Asgardians in a ‘yeah, it happened’ manner and looked curiously at the tankards spread around the table. “So is that mead, or can I finally have some coffee?”

That made Volstagg ask what coffee was and that set Clint and Tony—with the occasional indulgent word from Bruce—off on a spiel about the wonders of caffeine. A pot was obtained and passed around. Sif wrinkled her nose at the taste. Hogun, however, just quietly refilled his cup. Clint chinked his cup against his in a little salute and took a long, appreciative gulp. There really was nothing better than good coffee, or whatever Asgard called their version. 

Volstagg’s reaction made Tony laugh himself silly and Fandral just stared at his cup like it had personally insulted him. “This is worse than that time we got stranded on Muspelheim and all we had to drink was sulfur water.”

Thor chortled, and Tony immediately wanted details while Bruce started asking questions about their biochemistry—which made the Asgardians look at him crosswise. 

The party shot off from there. 

Half the coffee not replaced by tea was replaced with mead, and food vanished off platters. Volstagg could consume a truly staggering amount. He was actually keeping up with Steve. This led to a ridiculous eating contest with Fandral and Tony throwing each side ludicrous and increasingly vulgar insults. 

Stories were traded back and forth. The Warriors Three and Lady Sif wanted to hear about the invasion as, shield-mates of Thor though they were, they were not part of the royal family and Asgardians did love a good battle story. Afterward they started sharing stories of their own: fighting a dragon on Muspelheim, several times from the sound of it, not to mention a few fire giants and one earth giant for some God knows what reason, countless hunting trips to Vanaheim and Alfheim, even exploring Svartalfheim when they were really bored and allegedly starved for entertainment. 

These were traded for some of Steve’s war stories, which were declared Noble and Valiant very solemnly and entirely seriously, but the Warriors Three much preferred Tony’s shinier exploits as Iron Man. They particularly enjoyed the fight he’d had with Thor back in Germany and guffawed at him getting slammed into a tree. That had not been a word Clint had ever thought he would use but it was nearly the only way these people laughed.

Occasionally he put in a short anecdote of his own, but SHIELD ops rarely had anything to do with grandiose battles, and Clint was quite happy to not be the center of attention for once on this little trip. He was a sniper. He wasn’t supposed to be in the spotlight. 

After the first few stories, Sif and Nat moved to their own end of the table and talked quietly over a platter of cheese and candied fruit they appropriated. Nat’s bond became light and content, purring like a cat sunbathing. Sif, meanwhile, grew progressively more animated, her hands flying about in broad gestures, eyes shining. Thor kept smiling like a matchmaker very satisfied with his work.

“You two are exquisite together,” Fandral told them. He’d had seven tankards of mead by this point, but if Clint was any judge, the Asgardian was barely buzzed. Which made him either a reckless idiot or very brave. “Like rubies and onyx. Like a vanguard of Valkyries swooping into battle. A vision of the Norns themselves.”

The two women gave him identical looks of such withering scorn that Fandral swallowed half his tankard the wrong way. It took both Hogun and Volstagg pounding on his back to get him to breathe properly, and Nat and Sif laughed through it all. They turned back to their earlier conversation without a word to anyone else in the room. 

Clint was quite sure they were plotting world domination. 

The Warriors Three were obviously coming to the same conclusion. 

The first time Loki turned up in a story, the Asgardians all jerked to a stop, glancing between Clint and the other Avengers like they were expecting to get throttled. The team looked to Clint. He just gave that shrug again, and Volstagg went back to the story. It wasn’t like it was a big deal. Loki had been part of their little group way back then; of course he was going to show up in their stories. Why should Clint have a problem with that? He didn’t have a problem with telling stories about all the wild goose chases Nat had led him on before he finally caught her, or the chase he had led Phil on when he had been breathtakingly young and stupid. 

So he drank his coffee and listened as Volstagg regaled them with a story of how the six Asgardians went exploring an old mine on Nidavellir and inadvertently stumbled on a den of trolls. Clint just rolled his eyes with a little smile when the group decided to fight instead of retreat—even though they were outnumbered and outgunned.

Thor looked a little sheepish. “That was back when I loved nothing better than a good battle.”

“Aye,” Volstagg agreed with a laugh. “You’d fight anything that moved. And smashed many things that didn’t.”

“How very Hulk of you, Point Break,” Tony said with a grin. 

“Somehow I don’t think he was quite as single-minded about it,” Bruce demurred. 

The Warriors Three all laughed politely when the Avengers did and Volstagg returned to the story. Obviously, the fight went downhill from there. It was a mine dug by dwarves, so the tunnels were already limiting. Add to that flailing limbs, sharp objects, and trolls that could literally rip the rock from the walls, and you got disaster. The torches were quickly abandoned in favor of weapons and of course promptly went out in all the scuffle. 

“Loki helpfully conjured light for us,” Thor said. “I narrowly avoided having my head bashed in.”

“Being able to see was helpful. But it would have been even more helpful,” Fandral said, “if he could have killed his fair share of the trolls.”

Thor shrugged. “I did not mind killing three.”

“And the poor sod had to have the tendons in his arm reconnected.” Volstagg bit into the leg of a boar. He had a small pile of bones on his plate, but Steve was still winning by four.

“As if that is a great hardship,” Fandral countered. Hogun nodded beside him. “We’ve all done that.”

Thor’s brow furrowed and he stared into a pot something that reminded Clint of bread pudding. “Yes…but Loki—seemed to always come out the worst.”

“Like that time he had to have three ribs knitted?” Volstagg offered.

“Or when Lady Eir kept him in the healing ward because he’d fallen off that cliff and hit his head?” Fandral actually chuckled. “That walk back to the Bifrost site was one of our most entertaining. He kept trying to run off after _fylgjur_ , do you remember?” 

That started the two Asgardians off on a truly staggering list of injuries Loki had acquired, occasionally augmented by a Thor whose bond was clouding over in confusion. Hogun even offered one: apparently Loki had so exhausted his magic in the fifth fight with the Muspelheim dragon that he could barely function. His skin had lost all color, he tripped over everything, he moved like every joint was in pain. 

That last disturbed Clint. If he let himself think about it, the entire conversation disturbed him, especially with Loki’s bond in the back of his mind quietly throbbing in pain, though in the fuzzed out way that meant he was asleep. But he was not thinking about it. He had more important things to do. Like not overdosing on caffeine. And making sure his bond was clear and calm so that his soulmates didn’t throw him any more funny looks. Especially Thor. The god had enough on his plate at the moment. 

Nat still glanced at him. 

He ignored her. 

When they tired of that entertainment, the Warriors Three inquired into the team’s specialties, wondering what made them the ‘valiant defenders of Midgard.’ They already knew about Tony’s suit from his stories, and how he could fly and shoot energy from his hands. Steve they took at face value just from the way he held himself, and they were openly respectful of Bruce when Thor explained that he was Midgard’s berserker, which made Bruce wince. Tony clapped him on the shoulder before his bond could slip into any self-incrimination and cheerfully told the Asgardians all about the Hulk and how he was basically indestructible. 

“And what about you, Agent Barton?” Volstagg asked. “What is your mighty skill?”

“I’m a sniper.”

The Warriors Three looked to Thor. 

“Agent Barton is a distance fighter and scout,” Thor explained, setting aside his bewilderment for the moment. “He climbs to a high vantage point, reports enemy positions, and kills from a great distance.”

Fandral appeared very confused. “Do you not wish to engage in close combat? Feel the thrill as you dance among blades?”

“I don’t really like blades too much, I prefer hand-to-hand. But if I have to engage a target at close range, the op’s usually gone to shit. Give me my bow and a good nest, and I’m set.”

Volstagg’s brow furrowed as he thought that through. “Your mighty skill is archery?”

Tony smirked. “Hawkboy over there never misses.”

“Never,” Fandral repeated.

“It is true,” Thor said with a clap to Clint’s shoulder. “During the defense of Midgard, I saw him fell many foes from their transport. He even threw Loki off a transport with a well-placed explosion.”

The Warriors Three shared looks of disbelief. Clint bristled. That shot had been everything he had been waiting for after having the mind-control knocked out of him. Yeah, sure, he would have liked to have hurt the guy more, but that shot had gotten Loki into the Hulk’s clutches. That shot effectively neutralized Loki. Nat and Steve sent gentle inquires down their bonds, Nat now fully looking away from her conversation to run her eyes over him, assessing. 

“Surely you jest, Thor,” Fandral said.

“I have no wish to offend,” Volstagg added, nodded in what he apparently thought was a placating manner to Clint but which only came out as vaguely patronizing, “but you are mortal. How could you have had enough practice to never miss?”

Clint placed an elbow on the table and rested his chin in his hand, fingers splayed along his cheek, and fixed the Asgardians with a bored stare. “Want to find out? Any of you good with a bow? You must have some in this place, right? What with all your swords, maces, and other medieval weaponry lying about.”

“Hogun’s people are quite skilled with a bow,” Fandral said. Hogun inclined his head. “Volstagg and I are passable.”

“Then let’s have a little contest.”

Fandral grinned, bright and fierce. “What’s the prize?”

“My friends,” Thor interrupted, “surely you do not expect a boon from one so far from home, and after such recent destruction.”

Volstagg nodded. “He is right, Fandral.”

Fandral sighed. “But what’s the point in a contest if there is no prize? Where’s the motivation?”

“Not that any of this matters,” Clint said with a disinterested shrug. “I’m just going to win.”

“Really now?” Fandral said, quirking a brow in challenge.

Clint just stared back, deadpan.

Volstagg laughed deep from his belly and stood. “I like this one! Let us go to the training grounds.”

The Warriors Three took the lead, escorting them all out of the dining room and down the hall, Tony already negotiating with Fandral for some tech as a prize. Sif moved up to talk with Thor and Nat settled in beside Clint, bumping his shoulder. “Well done.”

He flashed her a smile. “I learned from the best.”

They made a detour back to the team’s rooms so that Clint could grab his bow—he could win with any; he just really liked this one. That was why he brought it—and then had to wait for Hogun to examine it to make sure the puny mortal wasn’t cheating or something. The silent Asgardian handed it back with a nod and flicker of approval in his eyes. 

The training grounds were a series of large courtyards and fields behind the palace, bracketed by barracks, stables, and armories. Three of the yards were already in use: trainees being taught sword-work in one, spear in another, and the third full of actual soldiers working on formations. Steve kept giving them measuring glances as the Warriors Three lead them to the empty target range. 

Clint rested his hands on his hips as he scrutinized the targets. The closest was twenty meters, the farthest forty. “You realize I’m a sniper, right? I’ll totally cream you on these kiddy distances.”

“You are an interesting mortal.” Fandral walked up to a control stand and punched a few buttons. The farthest target picked itself up off the ground and floated away, settling once when it had doubled its original distance. Now it was a good ten meters beyond the standard Olympic distance. A hologram shimmered over the stand showing the target’s faces. That was nice. Saved on walking. “That please you better?”

Clint tilted his head to the side and shrugged. “It’ll do.” He took his bow out and settled the quiver on his back. “Got any special rules you’d like to use?”

Fandral picked his own bow from a rack. “One shot each at the farthest target. The person closest to the center wins.”

“So, ‘no’,” Tony clarified. He and the rest of the team took seats on the range’s low wall to watch. All of their bonds were expectant, but Nat, Tony, and surprisingly Thor’s were also supremely smug. They were quite looking forward to watching these immortals get trounced. Clint had to work hard to keep the grin off his face. 

“Right. Home-fielders first.”

There was a bit of a scuffle as the Warriors Three decided their line-up, then Volstagg stepped up to the line. His arrow landed wide of center. He stepped back with a smile. “I am the least skilled of our group. I am too fond of my axe to use much else.”

Fandral shot next. His arrow brushed the edge of the center dot. 

Hogun’s arrow lodge itself firmly within it, though not quite at full center. 

Clint shrugged with one shoulder. They weren’t bad shots. Volstagg’s wouldn’t have been a kill shot like Fandral and Hogun’s, but he would have at least wounded a living target. 

Then Clint stepped up to the line and made his shot. 

The Warriors Three glanced at the hologram. Clint’s arrow was dead center. A perfect bullseye. 

Thor’s laughter boomed across the field, making a few heads in the other yards turn. “Did I not tell you, my friends?”

Clint twirled another arrow around his fingers. “Not too bad for a little mortal with no time to practice.” He smiled innocently. “Care to have another go?”

Volstagg laughed. “We are hardly the best archers Asgard has to offer, my friend.”

“True.” Fandral trotted off and returned a moment later with an entourage. “Avengers of Midgard, this is Instructor Einar. He’s responsible for training the army’s archers.” 

The Instructor, a tall rugged man with eyes so light a blue they were practically white, nodded at the group. “Lord Fandral says you wish to pit your bow against those of Asgard.”

“It will pass the time,” Clint said, nodding back. The Asgardian ran eye over him and glanced at the control stand’s hologram. Clint, meanwhile, looked at the gaggle of archers behind him. “Who’s first?”

The Instructor waved forward a raven-haired man who was obviously cut from the same cloth as Hogun, and the archer took his place at the line with a polite nod to Clint. The Instructor pushed another button on the control stand and the arrows dislodged themselves from the used target. 

“Nifty,” Clint said as his arrow drifted back up the range into his waiting hand.

Tony leaned forward. “Can I have a look at that panel?” Bruce pushed him back into his seat. “No, just for a moment, Brucie. I wouldn’t disrupt anything—and you can’t tell me you’re not interested too!”

The raven-haired archer took his shot at the now cleared target. He got a bullseye. 

“May I see one of your arrows?” Clint asked.

The archer glanced back at the Instructor then handed over one. Clint examined it carefully. He didn’t really care about the fletching—some kind of plastic substance he didn’t recognize, but it had the necessary stabilizing properties—or the head—just a basic target head—but the shaft was of interest. It wasn’t wood, wasn’t fully metal, but wasn’t exactly what he would call plastic either. Maybe some kind of fiberglass? He flexed it a bit, watching it bounce in his fingers, and scrutinized the nock. Mm, yeah, he could do it. Needed a different head, though.

He handed the arrow back to the archer and pushed the button for one of his special armor-piercing heads. The Asgardians looked at him curiously as the bottom of his quiver swiveled, and he held out the arrow without being prompted. 

The Instructor examined it for a moment, sniffed slightly at the no doubt inferior materials, and handed it back. Clint nodded regally then stepped up to the line and shot. 

His arrow flew straight into the bullseye, slicing the Asgardian arrow neatly in half. 

Clint grinned. He hadn’t gotten an excuse to do that for years, and it had been one of his favorite acts. 

Tony near fell off the wall laughing. “Awesome! Fucking awesome! All you need now is a feathered hat. What about the apple trick? Can you do the apple trick?”

“Don’t insult me, tin head.”

“He has the hat hanging in his closet,” Nat offered. “Made it himself too.” Clint glared at his soulmate. Her bond wasn’t repentant at all. 

“It was the circus, of course I had a costume. And I did not make it myself! So,” he said, turning back to the Asgardians before anyone else could comment—though they didn’t have to with all their bonds freely displaying their enjoyment of the situation— “who’s next?”

He slaughtered all the archers without mercy. From every shooting position and condition the Instructor could think of. 

By the end, he had garnered an audience of soldiers, servants, and passing People of Importance. Thor was making a big noise about how all the humans were his soulmates and Steve and Nat were doing their thing: half diplomacy on behalf of Earth and half fishing for information. It never ceased to surprise Clint just how good Steve was at that when the man couldn’t lie to save his dignity.

The Instructor considered the latest target with narrowed eyes. “That is not your best distance.” He didn’t even ask it as a question.

“Nope,” Clint responded cheerfully, twirling his arrow. God he was having a good time. This was like scaring baby agents, except better. Baby agents weren’t immortal godlings with a penchant for patronization. 

“If you would be so kind as to input it?”

Clint was so kind. One of the targets flew itself clear into the next yard, disrupting trainees who were being taught how to march. 

“Surely you jest,” Fandral repeated. “No one but Heimdall would be able to see that.”

Clint really let his grin loose. “Watch this.” He ignored the cat calls from Tony about famous last words, put his arrow to the string, and closed his eyes. He might be on a different planet, but he hadn’t needed eyes to do this for years. That’s one of the reasons he was so successful as an assassin: he could shoot in the dark without lasers. 

The crowd behind the low wall erupted into applause when the hologram showed the arrow hit the bullseye and Clint couldn’t help but give a little bow. Even Fandral laughed and clapped.

The Instructor looked dutifully impressed. “Who did you train under?”

“No one of any importance. ‘Sides, they’re dead now.”

“They trained you very well.”

Clint decided to let it slide, just this once. He had a clean bill of health and was surrounded by adoring fans. Neither of which happened very often in SHIELD. No point in ruining it with bad memories. 

The Instructor bowed. “Welcome to Asgard, Midgardian.”

Clint saluted back and the Asgardian led his archers away, though a few looked like they wanted to stay and have another go. Clint just hooked his bow over one shoulder and turned to the crowd to bask in their praise. They certainly weren’t tiring of giving it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to attempt to keep to a posting schedule of every other Sunday, but I have a job starting up with another in the wings, so...yup. Life. Shouganai.
> 
> Next up: it begins


	7. In Which the Trial Begins (And There Is Much Shouting)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! 
> 
> Thank you all for sticking along this long. Enjoy!
> 
> 4/17/2016:  
> **IMPORTANT!!**  
> I am attending a convention this next weekend, so the schedule will most likely get thrown off a bit. I regret nothing.

_This,_ Clint thought as he eyed his surroundings, _has got to be the weirdest day of my life._ He was standing on the stage-floor of an auditorium Quidditch could have been played in, on a different planet, whose galleries were filling up with literal aliens whom the Vikings had worshipped and attempted to emulate, to give testimony against the alien princeling who had tried to take over the Earth with _other_ aliens and who just so happened to be his fucking _soulmate_. Oh, and magic was a thing. And fucking destiny manipulation. Just throwing that out there, along with everything else. 

How had he gotten here? He wasn’t like the other people on the team. He didn’t have enhancements or an alter ego or maddening intellect. He was just a guy who happened to be good with a bow and crazy enough not to run for the hills when the sky cracked open. 

The team occupied a row of ornate but surprisingly comfortable chairs along the ‘back’ of the stage-floor, which Thor had informed them to be the witnesses’ seats. They faced a slightly raised, long judge’s bench, as yes, Asgard had decided to go with the Grand Council model. The empty space in the center of the stage-floor was engraved with a Norse version of a circular Celtic knot, all loops and whorls and sudden sharp angles. It could have been some sigil of state, but Clint was betting on magic thingamabob.

They were also dressed in full battle uniform. For Clint and Nat, that meant SHIELD uniform. Steve also had one, since his star-spangled costume had had Chitauri blood literally soaked into its fibers as to be nearly chemically bonded to it, and there was no way any dry-cleaner in the world was touching that. Tony and Bruce had brought suits, as the doctor didn’t really have a uniform—Tony had made a joke about pants, but Nat had pinched his ear before he could finish—and Tony had refused to be stuck in the Iron Man suit for hours on end, no matter how Regal and Dignified it made him look. 

Bruce cranked his head back on his neck. “This place reminds me of the Globe Theatre.”

“The creaky thing Shakespeare owned?” Tony asked. 

Bruce nodded. “I got to see _Richard II_ performed there once. Though this looks more like the Globe got grafted to a roman theatre.”

“Just how many people are we expecting?” Steve asked Thor. The doors had opened three hours ago, but people were still arriving in droves. 

The god shrugged. “Any citizen of Asgard who wishes to has been given leave to attend without fear of repercussion for absence from their place of work. This is the first time in my memory that a member of the royal family has been put on trial, so it would not surprise me if half to three quarters attend.”

“Wow. No pressure.”

“Stage-fright, raptor boy?”

“I’m a _sniper_ , tin head. The point of my job is to go unnoticed. Not everyone can or wants to be you with your attention-stealing body-suit of a target.”

The Warriors Three and Lady Sif walked out onto the stage-floor and greeted the team with hearty claps to the back and inquiries about their sleep whose answers they didn’t listen to. They went to seat themselves on open chairs to Thor’s left but immediately jerked back upright as Frigga entered from the auditorium’s other side. They bowed to her as Thor got up. “Mother,” he said, accepting her embrace, “why may I ask are you not in the royal box?” He head whipped around as Heimdall also joined them. “My friend, why are you not watching the borders?”

Heimdall eschewed the chairs to settle into a parade rest. “I have been given brief leave to attend, as there is testimony only I may provide. A small army of mages has fashioned temporary wards to keep watch in my absence.” 

“And I,” Frigga added, smiling slightly at Thor’s apologetic look, “also have testimony of to give. Events occurred where I was the only other person present. So as much as they may not like me to speak my piece, there is little they may do about it.” She patted Thor’s cheek and left him to his friends, coming instead to sit on Clint’s right. She took hold of his hand and laced their fingers together, wrapping her other hand over them. Clint shot her a look, but Frigga just patted his fingers lightly and watched the galleries fill. Just the topmost were empty now.

Finally, there no seat left to be had. Clint had never seen so much leather in his life. Ludicrously, he wondered where all the cows came from and if Asgardians dressed their babies in leather onesies. A gong pulled him out of his thoughts, and Odin entered to much fanfare, taking a seat in the viewing box situated ninety degrees to the Avengers’ left, giving him a clear view of the Avengers and the judge’s bench. 

The box next to him began to fill with what could only be the representatives from the other realms. The first was a buffer version of Hogun; he looked like Genghis Ghan had gotten transported to the future and discovered steampunk. He caught Hogun’s eye as he took his seat, and the two shared a nod across the stage-floor. Three dwarves followed him. Dwarves in height only, ‘cause they looked nothing like Tolkien. These dwarves were bald and had white eyes that looked shockingly corpse-like against the dark soot of their skin. They also had clear second lids that flicked over their eyeballs every few seconds. The sound of rubble shifting drifted through the air, and it took Clint a moment to realize it came from their joints as they sat. 

An eight-foot giant sauntered after them. He—so very much a he—wore nothing but a loin drape, whose dried-blood color blended disconcertingly with the rust tone of his skin. His eyes literally blazed with light, and none of his features could quite decide on what exactly they were. They kept shifting and morphing about. Even his body shifted. One moment he had pecs like Steve, the next he might as well had been skin and bones. It was enough to make Clint’s eyes hurt just looking at him. 

“I suggest you don’t,” Frigga said. “Vas is wearing three glamours so that he will not burn anyone, which is very polite of him, but fire is not an element that does well with confinement.”

“So he is from Muspelheim?” Nat asked over his shoulder.

Frigga nodded. “I do not know the names of the three dwarves, but they are the representatives sent from Nidavellir, and Mzang-neg Tenzin is one of Vanaheim’s most beloved philosophers.” Hogun confirmed this with a nod.

“That guy writes philosophy?” Bruce asked dubiously.

“His treatise on metaphysics and the design and use of truth spells has greatly influenced Asgard’s own policy concerning them,” Frigga answered. “He has also made a long study of the ways history and _seiðr_ have been entangled. Loki and I used to have long debates over his work.” She smiled slightly. Thor’s bond twisted for a moment before smoothing. Fandral and Sif sent the god curious looks. 

Another tall being walked into the delegates’ box. She was about the same height as Vas, perhaps a little shorter, and the only words that came to Clint’s mind were “lithe” and “willowy.” “Ethereal” did too, but even on an alien planet, he had trouble truly describing another living thing as “ethereal.” Her body was slender, all flowing lines, and boasted a pearlescent skin that glowed softly but hazy, as though through a veil. Her hair, white as new bone and as straight as weighted fishing line, was pulled over her thin shoulder to end below her waist, and she had the most liquid brown eyes. Seal eyes. Eyes that looked at you from across a different world and promised all the love and warmth a heart could hold. 

“The Lady Meili,” Thor said, smiling and nodding at her. “She is one of King Frey’s daughters.”

“Yes. Frey has his own kingdom to worry about, yet he still cares for his nephew.” Clint glanced at the queen, but her face was nothing but pleasant civility. 

That comment got Tony’s bond percolating. “Wait…”

“We are not related by blood,” Thor elaborated. “But he has been Uncle Frey for as long as I can remember.”

“Ah. So this is like a ‘all royalty is family’ thing then? Like Europe back before they discovered inbreeding bred idiocy but without the incest?”

“Tony…” Bruce’s voice contained newfound levels of pained exasperation. “Please…just stop.” Nat was laughing though.

The next delegate to walk into the box sent a murmur throughout the whole auditorium. She was petite, _maybe_ pushing four foot six, but held herself with a calm confidence, like she could take anyone here and knew it and knew they all knew she knew it. Her slate-toned hair was wiry and loose, just brushing shoulders covered in leather-and-metal armor, and framed a face with skin that reminded Clint of the sky just after twilight and somehow looked rough in texture. By this point, he thought he was done being surprised by what aliens looked like—truly, nothing else could startle him—but this woman’s eyes made his skin creep. They were star fields. The way Galadriel’s eyes had been described in the books, except somehow more intimate and deeply knowing. The night sky seen from your bedroom window instead of the cold depths of space. 

“Now this is a very pleasant surprise.” Queen Frigga actually bowed in her seat to the woman, who nodded back with a knowing smile. 

Nat glanced around the Asgardians sitting with them. Even the Warriors Three and Lady Sif looked impressed, if also concerned and a little uncertain. “Who is she?”

“That,” Thor said, “is Ullr. Hel’s most distinguished valkryie. I was not aware that Nifleheim was sending a representative.”

“Wait, the realm of the _dead_ sent a delegate?” Clint asked.

“Hel loves her father very much,” Frigga said. “I had hoped she would send someone, but her realm has been so busy of late, I was not confident she would have anyone to spare.”

That startled all of the team’s bonds. “Loki has a _kid?”_ Steve asked, voice high and tight.

“So what about the wolf, the horse, and the snake?” Tony asked. 

Sif laughed. “Are your people still talking about that?” 

Tony peered at her. “So are you saying it’s not true?”

“We had just returned victorious from battle and the mead was flowing very freely,” Volstagg said. He then added, somewhat predictably, “It was a good battle. Remind me to tell you the story sometime.”

“I cannot believe we forgot it,” Fandral mused. “We could have regaled them with it yesterday.”

The valkryie was the last delegate to enter the box. Jotunheim really hadn’t sent anyone. The Grand Council then filed onto the stage-floor and took their places at the bench. Clint was surprised to see Lady Eir was one of them, but not as surprised as Steve when Hoenir and Mimir claimed two of the seats. 

“Weren’t they Loki’s teachers?” he asked Thor. “Shouldn’t the judges be impartial?”

“They will actually be far less partial than I,” the god said. His bond didn’t quite know what to make of that knowledge. It was doing a far imitation of Tony’s at its most manic, albeit at a slower, more pondering pace. 

“Worry not, Captain,” Frigga said. “This is not the first trial of a friend they have attended or resided over. Justice—” the Queen made a snide curse out of the word “—will prevail.” She shot a pointed look to the box where Odin sat, but the Allfather made no acknowledgement of it. “They are also the best choice for their seats. Hoenir is the mages’ representative and Mimir is the scholars’. Lady Eir stands for the healers, _Völva_ Sege for the _volur_ , and Lord Forseti Dómarrson has long been chosen as the speaker for the general populace in these affairs where a full public forum is unwieldly.” The last two were a grandmotherly woman whose eccentric, absentminded air was probably a total lie, if she was serving as part of Asgard’s Grand Council, and a heavy-set man with Irish Breakfast skin, no milk or sugar, and a closed-off stare that would not have looked out of place on any Earth lawyer. He carried a gold-capped staff studded with dark stones. Frigga and the _völva_ exchanged nods across the stage-floor. 

Forseti claimed the middlemost seat, with the two woman on his left and Hoenir and Mimir on his right, but didn’t sit. After the other four had settled in, he searched each gallery as if he really was making eye-contact with each person attending, then bowed to Odin and the delegates’ box. “With the will of Asgard and her Allfather, I call this meeting of the Althing to session.” He pounded the staff once against the floor. The dark stones flared sharply, and the auditorium’s stage-floor was illuminated from a source Clint couldn’t see, gleaming lines encircling the witnesses’ chairs and the judges’ bench. For the life of him, Clint couldn’t get the Tron parallels out of his head. “On behalf of the Grand Council, I thank you all and particularly our visiting delegates for answering the summons. Our purpose this day is to hear and weigh the crimes of Prince Loki Odinson of Asgard. The accused will now enter.”

The door to the Avengers’ right—incidentally the same one Frigga had entered from—opened and Loki was led out onto the stage-floor. His feet were chained together with just enough slack to allow him to walk at a comfortable gait without stumbling, his hands to a belt that also provided the anchor point for the four leashes held by his guards, and also for a collar—which, really? What was the point of that? 

Clint narrowed his eyes as he studied the trickster’s face. What he was seeing was not jiving with what he was receiving through the annoying soulbond. The trickster _looked_ like he’d finally gotten some sleep; his face wasn’t as haggard and his eyes had regained that sharp quality that made them look like diamond cutters. But his bond was still so exhausted it was a wonder it transmitted anything. There was still that faint tint of pain around the edges that had Clint concluding that his magic was still cut off, even if Thor’s neutralizing cuffs had been exchanged for these ones. 

“I still do not see why you’re bothering with all this mummery,” Loki drawled. The guards secured his four leashes to the floor so that he stood at the exact center of the Celtic knot, facing the judges’ bench with his back to the Avengers. The edges of the knotwork lit in a clockwise sequence when the last was locked in place before going inert. “You’re just going to sentence me anyway.”

Mimir crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me, Loki. What is the principle behind Altheril’s Library?”

Loki glowered. “I hardly think I am in need of a philosophy lecture.”

Mimir glared right back. “You seem to have forgotten our basic tenets, so perhaps a little schooling would not go amiss.”

The Avengers, not to mention Thor and even his soulmates, glanced questioningly at Frigga. She sighed but took pity on them. “Altheril’s Library is an adage from the study of epistemology, coined after a children’s rhyme from Alfheim. At its most basic, it states you learn nothing when you believe you already know everything.”

Lady Meili laughed softly, a sound that tinkled through the space like bells and drew Loki’s attention to the delegates’ box. His bond froze in startled surprise when he saw Ullr. 

The valkryie smiled at him. “I would also add a phrase I heard from a mortal I once ferried: ‘do not attribute malice to that which can be explained by stupidity.’”

Loki said nothing, and after a moment inclined his head to her. She nodded back with a faint chuckle. 

Forseti coughed and rapped his staff just enough to reclaim the auditorium’s attention. “Loki Odinson—” Loki’s bond bristled and wasn’t that interesting “—stands before the Althing accused of treason against Asgard and by default against the Nine Realms in their entirety, attempted genocide—” Steve and Nat’s bonds went to full alert at that one “—as well as attempted invasion and subjugation of a protectorate of Asgard. Thirteen witnesses are present to provide testimony of the actions that constitute these crimes. Five of these witnesses are the defenders of Midgard that thwarted Loki’s invasion, and they stand here not only as witnesses to these events but also as Midgard’s legal and diplomatic representatives. There is also present Agent Clint Barton of Midgard, who became the shield-mate of Loki Odinson during the course of the invasion.”

Clint closed his eyes—just briefly, just for a moment—as every person in the galleries turned to their neighbor and babbled hysterically. Questions rained down.

“How did a _mortal_ manage to bond with Loki?”

“Has this been confirmed through soul-forge examination?”

“How can we trust any shield-mate of _Loki’s_? He’ll be just as duplicitous!”

“Does that mean the mortal aided Loki’s invasion of Midgard?”

Loki’s bond stiffened. The Avengers’ bonds went incandescent with protective impulses, and they glared vicious murder, on Nat’s and surprisingly Tony’s part, at the galleries. Clint tried not to wince, hiding behind his mission face. 

Forseti pounded his staff sharply against the floor, twice, face fair seething with offense. “All questions should be saved for the _appropriate_ time. I also wish to remind the Althing that the accused’s shield-mate has legal standing in this trial and that any concerns forthwith regarding said standing should be addressed to sections twenty-three, twenty-four, and seventy-seven of the Althing’s legal codex.” He stared hard-eyed around the galleries till the last person quieted. “For this first day of the trial, the witnesses will state the events as they saw them, keeping to a factual account, in as chronological an order as they can manage. We the Council ask that the Althing remain _quiet_ for this summarization.” He glared upward briefly, appearing to actually pin down certain people. “The second day and any more as are required will be spent investigating the circumstances around said events, and then and only then will participation of members of the Althing be permitted. Does any wish to object to this _standard_ practice?”

Forseti waited, one eyebrow cocked. When no one said anything, he nodded and turned to the witnesses. 

“Do you all, as witnesses before the Althing, vow to speak the truth and only the truth as you know it, keeping to the facts of what you have witnessed?” He swept his gaze down the line from Frigga to Heimdall until he had received affirmation from all of them. “The Council then yields the floor to you to recount the sequence of events as you all see fit.” And he sat down. 

The Avengers glanced around. They had nothing to say for what happened before Loki popped out of the Tesseract, and Clint didn’t know how things were done in the military or business, but the popcorn method of debriefing had never worked well for SHIELD. The first few minutes were always awkward before someone just jumped in and then no one else wanted to talk or really knew how to add in their own information, so that person ended up just recounting the whole thing, which meant that no one wanted to be the first to volunteer. 

The Asgardians seemed to come to a mutual decision by precise exchange of facial expressions, and Thor stood up, clearing his throat. “I will begin, as my brother’s crimes began with my coronation.”

Tony looked cross-eyed at the god before Thor minutely shook his head and launched into his tale. 

Clint felt like he was watching someone monologue Shakespeare—Thor’s cape certainly wasn’t helping with that impression, nor the theatre-esque qualities of their surroundings. Massive coronation party crashed by a burglary attempt on a magical relic, followed by the little party of adventure-seekers harrying off to confront the enemy’s king. All it needed was the flowery language and a skull for Thor to talk to. Bruce’s bond was highly amused.

Not to mention that nearly everyone in Thor’s account seemed to suffer from the same impulsive anger management that so many of Shakespeare’s characters did. Clint had to wonder what Heimdall had been thinking to let such young hotheads go off into enemy territory like that. That was like walking up to a rabid bear and insulting its mother while poking it with a sharp stick right in the eye. Of course you were going to get mauled. Steve, strategist and Good Guy that he was, wasn’t too approving either. Tony’s bond found the whole thing utterly ridiculous and entertaining. 

Loki’s bond was quiet until Thor started describing the melee they got into with the frost giants. Then a spike of grief zipped down the bond before the quiet submerged it again. 

Thor fidgeted when he recounted Odin’s banishing him to Midgard, but he kept eye contact with the judges. Clint wanted to know why that particular event was being included. Loki seemed to have little to do with it. It was all Odin shouting and ripping off pieces of Thor’s armor that were apparently symbols and manifestations of Asgard’s favor. 

Fandral and Sif jumped in with how Loki became king when Odin fell into a habitual coma—seriously? Who had regular comas?—and refused to retract Thor’s banishment. They almost seemed to take personal offense at it. So they decided to go get Thor themselves. 

Clint’s opinion of Heimdall really plummeted then. The guy had let the same people who had nearly caused an inter-planetary incident go off _again_ against express orders. Why was this guy still Asgard’s main gatekeeper? If he’d been employed by SHIELD, he would have been taken off active duty and sent back for retraining the _first_ time. Possibly fired after the second time for being irredeemably incompetent. Nat’s bond was even less impressed, if that was possible. 

Then there was the battle with the Destroyer, which Clint had spent evacuating townspeople to a safe distance and then scanning the skies to make sure no more freaky deaky tornadoes opened up. 

“My friends tried very valiantly to halt its rampage, but it was of little use. The Destroyer was nigh indestructible. So I charged them with the safety of the Midgardians who had sheltered me, and went to confront it alone.” Thor’s bond flipped for a moment. “I knew my brother would be able to hear me, so I took the opportunity to apologize for my actions and to ask for his forgiveness, and for him to spare the Midgardians in that village as they were innocent.”

A cruel, bitter amusement seeped through Loki’s bond like food dye dropped in a cup of water. The trickster’s body language, however, was relaxed and even a tad bored. Over Loki’s shoulder, he saw Hoenir purse his lips thoughtfully as he regarded Thor.

“The Destroyer stood still, then powered down,” Thor said with stubborn vehemence. The next part he added with great reluctance. “As it turned away, it backhanded me. Mortal as I was at the time, the action caused fatal injury. However, my actions leading up to that moment fulfilled the terms of my banishment, and I regained my full powers and citizenship. With them, I was able to kill the Destroyer. We were concerned about what may have been happening in Asgard, so we hurried back to the Bifrost site. However, Heimdall did not answer our call.”

The man in question stepped forward. “This was because I had been incapacitated at the Bifrost’s observatory. Prince Loki had used the Casket of Ancient Winters to freeze me in ice and while I was indisposed, opened the Bifrost and escorted five frost giants into Asgard, Laufey among them.”

 _That_ got the galleries’ hackles up. Even the members of the Grand Council sat up straighter. Angry shouts surged through the large space, rage not entirely untouched by alarm. After what Clint had managed to glean about the relationship between Jotunheim and Asgard from Thor’s story and Helka, the reaction seemed justifiable. If someone had opened up a blind spot in SHIELD’s security and let in members of Hydra, he’d probably feel that way too. 

“If I may add an observation,” Heimdall continued. His mellow voice calmed the seething words to a waiting simmer as all attention was once again focused on the stage-floor. “I noticed a curious thing. When Prince Loki was touching the Casket of Ancient Winters, he did not receive bodily injury. Instead, his skin turned blue and his eyes the hue of blood. Almost like a frost giant stood before me.”

A pin dropped on the stage-floor would have echoed off the ceiling. 

A faint chortling broke the silence. It grew uncontrollably, and Loki threw back his head and laughed like a demented thing. 

Clint was really quite disturbed now by the dissonance between Loki’s behavior and the emotions roiling off his bond. 

“Is this another of your pranks?” Forseti demanded. 

Loki snickered. “Oh no. This is not one of _my_ pranks. This is one of Odin’s.”

Forseti’s eyes flicked to Odin briefly, while Mimir flat out glared at the Allfather. Odin, for his part, looked resignedly stoic. 

“Ah, how wonderful it is to find that I was not the only one the truth was hidden from. How does it feel, Heimdall,” Loki threw over his shoulder without bothering to look, “that the king you obey without question lied so extravagantly to you for so many centuries? And you all think _I_ am the god of lies and deceit.”

“Facts, Loki,” Hoenir requested in a chiding tone. 

“Of course, how could I be so thoughtless?” Loki shook his head melodramatically. “I looked like a frost giant because I am a frost giant. Another war prize stolen from Jotunheim, hidden away here as Odin’s second son.”

Thor’s hands clenched. His bond was tight with worry and grief, but betrayed no shock or surprise. Strangely, none of the rest of his soulmates’ bonds did either, so the god must have said something before Nat had whacked him. Thor’s friends looked stunned, then, in the case of Sif, righteously validated. The galleries chattered like a group of monkeys, incoherent and jumping all over the place. Frigga stared up at them with all the fierce, unwavering strength of a forest fire. Even the delegates appeared shocked. Clearly, Odin had been keeping his cards very close to his chest.

Loki continued talking, voice light and casual and just the tiniest bit vindictive. “So thorough was Odin’s deception that not even I was aware of my true parentage, until I went on a certain excursion with Thor. A frost giant warrior grabbed my arm in the midst of battle and I received no injury or pain.”

Clint glanced at Frigga. 

“Jotuns are exponentially colder than most other inhabitants of the Nine Realms,” she explained softly. “Their touch can produce frostbite and severe burns.”

“How could you possibly be unaware of something like that?” an Asgardian near the top galleries shouted. The woman sounded genuinely incredulous. “You are a mage and a _seiðmaðr._ How could you remain ignorant of such deep self-knowledge?”

“Doubting me even in this, are you?” Loki sneered.

“You must have known!” another, closer down, shouted.

More angry shouting followed in the same vein. Clint was starting to feel uncomfortable. This was the type of fervor from which mobs were born. Mutinous lynching was not something he wanted any part of. On his left, Nat shifted into a more defensive stance. Tony pulled out his phone surreptitiously, placing his other hand on Bruce’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. The scientist’s eyes were turning worryingly green. Thor was starting to give the man concerned looks. 

Slamming his staff against the ground, Forseti actually growled until he had silence then turned his obsidian stare on Odin. “Is this true, my king?”

“Yes,” Odin sighed. “This is true.”

“I do not wish to doubt you, my king,” someone called down from the third gallery tier, “but I wish to see proof of what Loki says.”

Loki’s bond was in turmoil. Something soft and bright sparked before it was ruthlessly smashed beneath cynicism, grief, and rage. It woke an echo in Clint, making the old scar on his thigh ache with phantom pains. He growled softly and ignored the sympathetic squeeze Frigga gave his hand. He was not going there. He was _not._

“Yes!” another clamored. “How do we know this is not another of his lies?”

“Or a plot to gain the favor of the Grand Council?” another demanded. 

Mimir looked savagely amused. “It would be one of the more creative attempts.”

Loki bowed to the assembled galleries as mockingly as his chains allowed. “Far be it from me to deprive you of entertainment, as you are so sorely lacking in it here. Shall I sing the sagas as well?”

“That is not constructive, Loki,” Hoenir said. 

“This is not one of our debates.”

“No,” the old mage agreed. “This is simply the trial that determines your degree of guilt in a series of inter-realm criminal actions.” The two stared off for a moment, then Hoenir tilted his head to the side. “On that note, proof needs to be presented that your change in appearance cannot be put merely to your shapeshifting abilities, dampened even as they are by that collar.” 

Clint blinked. So the thing wasn’t totally pointless. 

Loki shrugged. “I do not see any other frosts giants to touch. Do you?”

“The Casket of Ancient Winters would suffice.”

“Is that wise?” Forseti asked. “If he unleashed its power here, he could potentially create another Jotunheim.”

Hoenir waved a hand disdainfully. “That would be incredibly pointless, but for your comfort and peace of mind—Loki, if we were to bring out the Casket, do you swear not to use it to harm any gathered here or Asgard herself this day?”

Bitter amusement rolled off Loki’s bond. “You have my word.”

“There. No harm will come. Bring out the Casket for your proof.” Hoenir sat back in his chair and laced his fingers across his stomach, the very picture of a man who knew he had the upper hand. 

Forseti didn’t look entirely satisfied, but he didn’t argue and sent out guards to retrieve the Casket. 

“That’s it?” Tony asked “That’s all they need to believe he won’t go batshit crazy?”

Thor fidgeted. “My brother cannot go against his sworn word.”

“It is a price of using _seiðr_ ,” Frigga explained. “If we agree to promises in a certain fashion, we become physically beholden to them. Failing to fulfill our promise results in agony and eventual death.”

Steve jerked upright. “Are you saying that all we needed to do to stop the invasion was to get Loki to _agree_ to stop it? That’s it?” He glared at Thor. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” 

“It only works if he vows willingly and it was unlikely that he would have done so, even under duress.”

The troop of guards returned carrying a metal box. They halted before Loki and a guard with a free hand twisted a piece of engraving. The box retreated like one of Tony’s suits to reveal an object that looked way too much like the Tesseract for Clint’s comfort. One of Loki’s hands was unclipped from the belt, and he laid it casually across the Casket’s top.

Watching from the back as they were, there wasn’t much to see besides the tips of Loki’s ears turn a very definite blue, but there were other things. Frost webbed out across the floor from Loki’s feet. Clint could feel goosebumps racing across his skin as the air temperature plummeted. 

“Ta-da,” Loki said mockingly. He nearly startled a laugh out of Clint.

“Allfather,” a man from the fifth tier said, “what were your plans for this? Did you honestly consider putting a frost giant on the throne?”

“Of course not,” someone shot back from across the auditorium. “Thus Loki’s constant jealous manner and underhanded trickery.”

“And why he so readily opened the Bifrost to Laufey.”

“I’ll bet he even let in the ones that attempted to steal the Casket during Thor’s coronation.”

“Oh please,” Loki scoffed. “Like that oaf was anywhere near ready to become king. He marched straight into a war without any thought for the consequences.”

“You do not have any right to criticize. Did you not do the same with Midgard? You had not even been provoked into such an action!”

“Oh yes, because Asgard is always so noble and righteous,” Loki spat, bond contorting itself into hard knots. Clint’s bones ached as the temperature dropped another ten degrees. “Never has she attempted to conquer a _lesser_ realm or ignored those thought beneath her notice. But now, after a millennia of neglect, oh suddenly now you are all so interested in Midgard’s little world. Is it because they managed to defeat me when you could not or is it because they have grown so much in your absence that _they no longer need you?”_

“Curb that silver tongue of yours, lie-smith,” a man bellowed. 

“You are like children,” Loki sneered. “I grew tired of your stagnant egotism long ago.” 

“Enough of this,” someone shouted. “There cannot be much to deliberate over anymore.”

Sick satisfaction bloomed large and ugly on Loki’s bond. Underneath, resignment and a streak of dark, exhausted relief. 

Frigga surged to her feet. The air around her body practically thrummed with pent up tension. “Be silent,” she commanded. The cacophony cut itself off with a short hiccup. In the ensuing hush, the Queen’s presence filled the auditorium, actually making it a bit difficult to breathe. Loki’s spine stiffened minutely and he removed his hand from the Casket, allowing the room to slowly return to its original temperature. “How dare you. We have trials for this very reason. So that public opinion does not execute someone before their full guilt can be determined. If you cannot abide by the laws that you have helped set in place, then you do not belong here in this realm. Go out and find a different home in Yggdrasil. 

“I would also remind you of the boy before he became the man that stands before you.” The muscles in Loki’s shoulders bunched. “Quiet. Studious. Kind. He was just as much a jotun then as he is now. Are you so blind as to let one fact cloud your entire memory?

“Laufey did infiltrate the palace and attempt to murder Odin. I defended my husband but was overpowered. It was Loki that killed Laufey and thereby saved the Allfather’s life.” She glared up at the galleries. “It was only at this point that Thor arrived and confronted him.”

“Thank you, Frigga Allmother, for getting us back on track.” Hoenir bowed his head to her. Frigga acknowledged it coldly. “Prince Thor, if you would be so kind as to continue?”

Thor’s bond was uneasy about once against stepping into the spotlight, but he did so anyway, since the god had no use for the word ‘retreat.’ He recounted how Loki locked the Bifrost open on Jotunheim so that its energy would tear the planet apart, the brothers’ subsequent fight, and how Thor had destroyed the Bifrost to halt its destruction.

“The explosion threw us both into the air, and it was only the Allfather’s sudden appearance that saved us from death. He caught me, and I caught Gungnir that Loki was still holding. Loki…” Thor shot his brother’s back a glance but Loki stood as frozen as stone. “Loki told Father that he could have done it. Father told him ‘No,’ and Loki…let go.”

The auditorium waited for him to continue, but Thor said nothing else, his bond just quietly drowning. After a brief silence, Forseti stood and turned to Loki. “Loki of Jotunheim, do you admit to these actions as they have been recounted?”

Loki looked at him. His free hand started to clench then relaxed, lying limp at his side. “Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time I also take great liberties with Mongolian and Tibetan, just for the hell of it. I also play fast and loose with names. 
> 
> Up next: lunch does not go well and the Avengers get their turn


	8. In Which Lunch is Served (With a Side of Destiny)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Thank you all for your patience and comments. 
> 
> This only has one third of what I planned for it to have (*sigh*), but I figured you guys had waited long enough and I wanted to get back on a schedule. It’s good for me. So...I totally lied with last chapter's "up next". I'll try to stop doing that. No promises. 
> 
> Enjoy

Forseti nodded his acceptance of the words. “The Althing will recess for one hour. Food and drink may be had in the appropriate lounges. A gong will sound to signal our reconvening.” He rapped the staff twice against the floor and the stage-floor’s illumination went out. Guards stepped forward to unlock Loki’s chains and lead him back out the door he’d entered through, while others whisked the Casket away.

Frigga got up without a word and strode purposefully away. Clint might have felt sorry for whatever poor bastard she was about to go tell of, but then…they were probably Asgardian, and Asgardians were rapidly losing his sympathies.

“Well,” Tony said, stretching. “That was…interesting. Like watching a kangaroo court.”

“It _is_ a kangaroo court,” Steve muttered. 

“In atmosphere only,” Bruce corrected. The other two turned baleful stares on him. “Look, the people making the most noise aren’t the ones who get to make the final decision. They’re the peanut gallery.”

“Brucie, since when are you the optimist here?”

“What is a kangaroo court?” Sif asked. 

Steve crossed his arms. “It’s a tribunal where the accused is considered guilty from the beginning, regardless of the evidence. It’s a parody of judicial procedure to validate the jury’s own bloodthirstiness.”

Sif’s brow scrunched. “But that is nothing at all like Asgard.”

“Right,” Tony said, standing. “And the sun never sets here either. It’s just sunshine and fucking roses. Now, I believe I heard something about food? I think a little alcohol is in order. Lots of it.”

Bruce frowned. “You are not getting drunk in the middle of the trial, Tony.”

“Oh ye of little faith. Would the great moi get drunk from a glass or two? Seriously, Bruce.”

Thor gave himself a little shake and gestured to the closest door. “This way, my friends.”

The lounge was large and spacious, chairs and couches set up in loose groups and buffets along the walls. A sizeable crowd was already there, aristocrats judging by their wardrobe alone, plus the visiting delegates. Thor’s friends gathered their food before getting swept up in an animated debate with a gregarious cluster of young people. 

The Avengers took no time filling plates—breakfast had been way too long ago—and found an open spot to stand, as they were all too restless to sit down. A servant came around with a small stand of goblets, mugs, pitcher of wine and a pot of tea for them. Clint leaned forward to sniff at the tea, wondering if it was the same one Helka had given him, not the one that knocked him out but the one for his headache. He could use it about now. The servant flinched, snatching her hands away from the stand. 

All the Avengers stared at her.

Clint cracked a grin. “Was it something I said?”

The servant scrapped a fast bow and practically ran away. 

“I’m starting to wonder about your employer’s policy here, Point Break,” Tony said, popping a pastry something into his mouth. 

Thor grimaced and grabbed a goblet of wine, downing it in one. His bond was beyond exasperated. “My brother is known for playing pranks. The last time a servant came up to us with refreshments, he turned the wine into snakes.”

“I’m mortal,” Clint complained. “I don’t have magic.”

Thor was contemplating the bottom of his goblet. “I am beginning to see that it does not matter.”

“Thor!” called a voice that sang like the wind through willow leaves. “You have not come to greet me. And it has been so many years.”

The god graced Meili with a polite smile as the delegate wafted up to his side. “My apologies, cousin. I have a great many things on my mind.”

“And there is little I can say to that excuse,” Meili answered with a wider smile. Her ears were slightly, delicately pointed. She nodded to the team. “Will you introduce me to the Defenders of Midgard?”

Thor did, each team member exchanging polite nods when their names were spoken—except Tony, who bowed like a stoned court jester. Meili laughed delightedly at his antics. “I am pleased to meet your acquaintance. I am sorry that it had to be under such dark circumstances. Please accept my sympathies for your realm.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Steve said in his Captain voice. “The sentiment is appreciated.”

“Perchance when this is over, we could meet,” she suggested. “Alfheim is always interested in new trade partners. Perhaps there are ways in which a relationship could be mutually beneficial.”

“We would be happy to oblige, ma’am.”

Meili inclined her head in acceptance. “I will leave you to your refreshments then.” She smiled at Thor and merged back into the flow of people. 

“Steve,” Tony began, “about that meeting—”

“Yes, Tony, please go ahead. I wouldn’t know the first thing to say. But take Agent Romanoff with you.”

Tony scowled, bond clearly peeved. Nat flashed him a sweet smile. “Stark Industries does not get exclusive rights to first alien trade.”

Tony squared off with her. “And just what are you going to do about it, Itsy Bitsy? What makes you think I’m going to let a bunch of government spooks anywhere near an alien trade agreement? The world does not need newer and deadlier weapons.”

“Says the man who invented most of those himself.”

“I’m with Tony on this one,” Bruce interjected. 

The two turned bright gazes on him but before either could get a word in, the dwarves slithered out of the crowd, staring at them all without blinking. It was like being scrutinized by a bunch of dead fish. Definitely creepy and beyond disturbing. Nothing else here screamed “alien” quite like these beings. Clint was very thankful when the dwarves focused their laser gaze on Tony.

The one in the middle said something in a language that sounded like it had never heard of vowels or breathing. 

Thor looked at Tony. “Man of Iron, the Nidavellir delegation have heard of the armor you arrived in and would like its specifications.”

“No can do, big guy. That suit’s mine, and it’s staying that way.”

The dwarves looked annoyed, and the one on the left grunted a response. 

“They say they do not wish to recreate it, they are simply curious. They wish to know how a mortal without access to magic or dragonfire managed to create something of such capability.”

Tony rubbed his brow. “Goddamn, it’s like high school all over again,” he muttered to himself, something old and worn fluttering in his bond. “Tell you what, Point Break, they bring something for me to fiddle with, and I’ll tell them a bit about the suit.”

Thor looked at the dwarves. “Is this acceptable, honored delegates?”

The dwarves all blinked in unison at him then nodded and departed without another word. 

“Why didn’t you address them by name?” Steve asked. 

“Because,” Thor said, refilling his goblet, “even with Allspeak I do not have the physical capability of doing so. The dwarves know this and have long since ceased offering any.”

“And the reason they insisted on speaking in their own language when they understood us just fine is also Allspeak?” Nat asked.

“Yes.”

“Now how do I get a hold of that little piece of tech?” Tony asked. 

“You would need to live two hundred years, steep yourself in the energy of Yggdrasil, and visit all of the realms at least once.”

“Ah,” Tony said, staring at the far wall cross-eyed. “That…is a little difficult.”

“Precisely.”

And Tony’s bond was off, running in at least three different directions. Bruce shot the god a look that clearly said it was all Thor’s fault.

They were given barely five minutes of peace and quiet before an Asgardian approached and bowed. Goddamn, it was like attending a business function undercover. Smile and nod and no fucking way to duck out early. Clint shared an eye roll with Tony. 

“Prince Thor,” the lord said, nodding to the god. “Defenders of Midgard, I am Lord Bragi Hermóðurson. Congratulations on your recent bonding. I’m sure you are worthy of the honor bestowed on you. Such a shame that you have the misfortune of also being bonded to a criminal. My condolences.” Steve squinted at the Asgardian like he was trying to make sense of one of Tony’s ramblings. The lord turned to Thor. “My prince, allow me to express my sympathies for being forced to associate with Loki any further. I deeply hope his insidiousness will cease to be a problem after this.”

“Bragi, be warned. I am not in the best of moods. If this were your twin on trial, I _trust_ you would feel similarly.”

The Asgardian’s eyes said clearly how much he doubted that but he wisely said nothing and retreated with another polite bow. He never acknowledged Clint’s presence. 

In fact, every single Asgardian to come up to their little grouping refused to look in Clint’s direction. Even when Nat shifted quite pointedly. 

Tony growled after the fifth person had walked back to the buffet, having made a not-so-veiled comment about Clint’s parentage. “Thor, how much diplomatic immunity can I claim if I blast all these assholes with a repulsor?”

“A little dramatic, don’t you think, Tony?” Steve asked. 

“Oh really? And what would you suggest, Captain Sunshine?”

“Good ol’ fashion punch to the jaw.”

Tony turned speculative eyes on the soldier, bond mildly impressed. “Won’t their annoying alien super-healing get in the way of a normal punch?”

“Boys,” Nat scolded. “No one is punching or shooting anyone here. It’s too public and there are too many witnesses and people who might interfere. We’ll wait till after dark then slip into their quarters and poison them while they sleep.”

Tony grinned. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.” 

Clint glanced slightly wide-eyed around his soulmates. Thor was struggling between agreement and his position of crown prince, but the rest of them looked quite happy with Nat’s plan. Even Steve, which was really blowing Clint’s mind at the moment. Captain America was willing to do sneaky assassin things just ‘cause his soulmate was being uniformly discriminated against and he couldn’t cause an inter-realm incident in public? Nat, and Tony to a degree, he expected, but Captain America? Bruce wasn’t having a problem with the idea either, but then he’d also retreated toward the back of the group and his bond was starting to acquire a fuzzed out, angry edge to it. 

“Hey, buddy,” Clint said softly, “you gonna be okay there?”

Bruce lifted a hand and wiggled it back and forth, grimacing.

Clint was about to ask for a little more than that, please, when there was a lull in the white noise in the lounge and a conversation from a few groups was suddenly perfectly audible. 

“…saw the display at the archery range yesterday. It all makes sense now. He must have been using trickery of some kind. There is no way a mortal could outperform Asgardian archers.”

_—“Really? That’s the best ya got? A monkey could throw better than you.”—_

_—“Yes, you hit the bulls eye but your form was off here, here, and here, and your arrow didn’t fly straight. No one’s going to pay to see someone who looks like an amateur.”—_

_—“Jesus fucking Christ, Clint, don’t you have any fucking brains in that head of yours at all?”—_

Clint clenched his hands, nails digging into his palm. 

It was only for a few days. He just had to survive to the end of the trial and then he could home. Go home and bury all about this and get on with his fucking life. 

Belatedly, he realized his soulmates had shifted so that they were between him and the rest of the room. Nothing overt. Just a shift of shoulder or heel, but he was definitely closer to the wall than any of his soulmates. Inquiries and concern were coming down every single bond. Clint didn’t want to consider what his had been radiating. Even with a bond, there were some things that should stay private. Some things didn’t need to see the light of day, or even the moonlight. 

Ullr materialized in front of the group, startling Tony into a very undignified squawk. Thor bowed deeply to her. She acknowledged him with a gesture, then focused on Nat. The ex-assassin met her gaze with without flinching. They stared at each other quietly, Nat’s bond slowly coiling into something almost like unease. The valkyrie smiled sisterly at her. She stepped past Nat and up into Clint’s personal space, pinning him with the same searching gaze. The intimate proximity of her gaze was eerie, more like he was looking through twin windows than at a person. 

“So you are Loki’s shield-mate,” she mused. 

“So what?” Clint demanded, narrowing his eyes. 

The valkyrie cocked her head to the side. She had yet to blink. “So much grief and anger…you left something behind in that tent, I think.”

Cold dropped down Clint’s spine to his stomach. “I got it back.”

“Did you.”

His nails bit deeper into his palms. He could feel blood. “Yes.” There was that scar on his thigh to prove it. And the name at the top of his wrist. 

Swift as lightning, Ullr reached up and gripped his head firmly. The stars in her eyes glittered, the force of the universe behind them. “Then I have a charge for you, hawk. Find him. And bring him back. He refuses to admit it, but he needs you.” Her thumb caressed his cheek almost tenderly. “Just as you need the reassurance.”

Clint wanted to pull away, protest and defend, but this small being held him rooted to the spot, eyes riveted to her own. Starlight had slipped in the cracks. 

In the back of his mind, his soulmates’ bonds were in an uproar, protective and worried and confused, but at this moment they were nothing more than mosquitoes buzzing around his ear. Still, he looked into the eyes that were reading his soul like a book and opened his mouth.

Ullr shook her head. “She has already said her piece.”

Clint glared. “She was right.”

“Yes, she was. It was nothing you were ever trained for. But there is a difference, little hawk, between being told and _knowing._ You need to see yourself reflected to you.” She stroked his cheek again. “Remember your charge, little hawk. Find him.”

And with that she released him and strode away, the Asgardians politely but hastily moving out of her way. 

Clint felt like someone had ripped the rug out from under him and spun him around like some stupid college drinking game. He didn’t quite want to meet his teammates’ eyes. Their bonds told him what he would see there.

Their bonds…Clint jerked upright, eyes flying wide. Loki’s bond was still exhausted and still edged with pain but it was…concerned? And…contrite? The fuck? It wasn’t the blazing beacons of righteousness that were his teammates’ bonds at the moment, but the overtones were unmistakable. They just couldn’t be possible. 

Now there was a tinge of frustration. 

Clint blasted his own frustration down it. What did the trickster expect? 

Almost rageful apology answered him back, shadowed by smudges of old indignation and weary, bewildered envy. Though those last, Clint thought, didn’t seem meant for him. They was directed elsewhere. Involuntarily, he glanced at Thor. The god was looking back at him, with that little scrunch in his brow from when he’d walked Loki oh so carefully down the Bifrost. 

The turbulent emotions disappeared, smothered back down by the exhaustion. Clint was left with the lingering afterimage of a clinical apology and an undertone of irate injustice. 

Goddammit. What the hell was he supposed to do with that? It just didn’t make any fucking sense!

He could feel a hysterical, self-deprecating laugh bubbling up in his throat. Like anything else had been recently. 

Nat and Tony pressed into his sides. One soulmate who had never had illusions to be shattered and another who had had them smashed to smithereens, and who was still attempting to gather the pieces. Clint glanced around their little group and winced. No one on this team was unbroken. Not the scientist, not the soldier from another time, not the fucking god. They all had cracks. 

He scrubbed his hands over his face like he could rub the skin off. It was like slowly dying of thirst and all that was offered was one glass of water. It was something, but it was never going to be enough. Dammit. Why couldn’t that valkyrie have just left him alone?

_—“Goddamn, kid, you can run. But I’m getting a little tired of it, so why don’t we stop now?”_

_“You fucking shot me!”_

_“Whose fault is that, Barton? Let me ask you a question: do you really want to spend the rest of your probably short life taking blood money and running from guys like me, or do you want to put your skills to something a little more useful?”_

_“Such as killing people for the government?”_

_“I’m not denying that might happen, but a marksman like you is useful for other things. Stopping getaway cars. Getting espionage devices in place without putting agents at risk. Giving me a view up top. Room and board are included, and we’ll at least try to extract you if an op does bad.”_

_“Pff, fine, whatever. S’not like I can really get away now, and you’re not really any different from all the other scumbags, so your money isn’t either.”_

_“Welcome to SHIELD, Agent Barton. You always this cynical?”_

_“When people think it’s easier to just shoot me? Hell, yes, I am.”—_

A gong vibrated the walls, drawing Clint out of his memory like a fisherman reeling in a fish. He struggled for a moment with the sudden weight in his chest, while his soulmates stayed quiet and waited. He ran his fingers over the calluses on his drawing hand and pictured a face.

Clint closed eyes, and breathed deeply. Holding onto the promise of the bonds in his mind, he straightened, shifted his shoulders though there was no quiver to settle, and stepped forward back toward the auditorium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: NOW the Avengers get their turn


	9. In Which the Avengers Say Their Piece (and a Conversation is Had)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. Sorry about the late update. I started a new job today (woohoo!) and things had to get juggled a bit.

Most of the galleries were already full when they returned. Clint took his seat without looking at them, though he couldn’t help but notice that the Warriors Three and Sif taking seats in one of the lower ones that seemed to hold only Asgard’s aristocracy. Heimdall had also vanished, but he had an actually job to do. Frigga, however, hadn’t and quite pointedly sat next to Clint. Her expression reminded Clint of Fury when he stomped around headquarters after a conference with the World Security Council. 

The judges filed in and were followed by Loki. There was vague chatter while he was secured to the engraving, but it melted away when Forseti stood and rapped his staff against the floor, re-illuminating it. 

“The trial of Loki of Jotunheim is now reconvened,” he intoned before glaring up at the galleries. “I will remind the Althing that they are to remain silent throughout the rest of the witnesses’ statements. Any further breach of this protocol will result in the offender thrown out and barred access from the remainder of the trial. Have I made myself clear?” 

A few Asgardians shifted in their seats, but no words were spoken. 

Forseti nodded in satisfaction. “Witnesses, you may continue your account.” He sat down and waited expectantly. 

The Avengers all glanced at Clint. On his left, Nat squeezed his hand, softly inquiring down the bond. Clint let out a breath that did not shake, it didn’t. He shook his head at his soulmates and stood. There wasn’t a choice. He had been the only one present. It had to be him. 

Clint took a breath, ran his thumb over his calluses, and let himself slip into sniper mode: calm, patient, focused and deadly. He raised his chin to the judges’ bench. “I was running surveillance in a research facility when Loki came to earth.” He described how the Tesseract when it had started acting up of its own volition and then Loki had popped out, pale and sweaty and crazy shit-eating grins, and the subsequent fight. How Loki had looked into his eyes and it was almost like he pierced straight through to Clint’s soul, and how the first words he spoke were ‘You have heart’ and then had proceeded to conquer it.

Clint paused then, considered the clinical dissection of the Mind Gem’s invasion that SHIELD would have required. But these people weren’t SHIELD.

He recited verbatim the conversation between Fury and Loki. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the delegate from Vanaheim begin to stroke his beard, eyes dark and brooding. He described how he noticed Fury stalling for time, informed Loki of it, and how shot his own Director. 

His soulmates apparently hadn’t heard that part. 

However, only support floated up through their bonds. Clint pushed forward. When he got to the part where Loki went into a deep trance and only resurfaced when he nearly toppled over, Hoenir and Mimir glanced at each other, but Clint didn’t stop. Just kept barreling ahead, forced by his own momentum.

He recounted the long hours spent spilling every piece of relevant information he had—and some that weren’t so relevant. It made him almost heart-sick, just how much he had divulged so complicitly and without reservation. What was nearly worse was describing the scheme he devised to obtain the iridium. Loki had had no part in that. It was part of his invasion plan, yes, and he had used it as a springboard for the rest of it, yes, but Clint had been the one to iron out the wrinkles, organize the men and supplies, and he had been the one to demand the eyeball. 

That was when Nat stood up beside him and firmly took the reins, reporting how SHIELD had pinpointed Loki’s location and sent out a task force to bring him in. The rest of the team joined in with their respective parts of that fight, Tony sounding particularly annoyed about Thor dropping out of the sky and flitting away with their prisoner. 

Thor stepped forward and recounted his conversation with Loki on the mountain top. And the truly spectacular fight with Ironman and Captain America that followed. Quiet murmurs fluttered through the galleries when Thor mentioned they’d leveled a small forest, nothing distinct enough for Forseti to prosecute, but he still death-glared them all the same. Steve’s bond was sheepish and exasperated, but Tony’s was cat smug. 

Bruce picked up the narrative at that point, mentioning the grin Loki had given him when he had been paraded past the lab, and the video of Fury’s talk with Loki in the Hulk’s cage. 

Clint listened carefully when Nat caught the thread and reported her own interrogation. He wanted to know just what information had been used against her, just what the trickster had said to her to resurrect the shadows. Except Nat had come to the same conclusion he had, so her report was cursory. Then he got distracted by Loki’s bond. Swimming up through the exhaustion was annoyance, again that weird satisfaction, and a thread of…respect? Clint nearly smiled. That was his Nat, all suave and deadly charm. 

The reporting of the helicarrier fight was practically a free for all, one person barely finishing a sentence before another jumped in, like a tennis ball bouncing higgledy-piggedly over the court.

All their bonds flat-lined when Thor narrated Phil’s death—well, except Tony’s. Tony’s coalesced down to a laser point, focused and concentrated. Clint stared at the floor when he felt his mask crack, putting his hands behind his back as they clenched. 

There was only exhaustion on Loki’s bond. 

Thankfully, Clint really didn’t have to say much after that. All that was left was New York and the nuke, and the rest of the team was perfectly capable of relying that without his input. A chuckle rippled through the galleries when Tony described the security footage of Hulk smashing Loki into his floor like a ragdoll, but Loki’s reaction made Clint stare at the back of his head. Beneath all the exhaustion and edge of pain from the restraints, Loki’s bond basked in contentment and satisfaction. Not the weird, dark-edged satisfaction from earlier that made Clint’s skin crawl, but a deep, prideful—and slightly smug—sense of achievement, spiced with just a touch of gratitude. From getting so smashed into concrete that even a god couldn’t get back up? What the hell?

“And then we captured Loki back in my penthouse, and the guy asked if he could have the drink I’d offered,” Tony wrapped up. “You know, you gotta admire his cheek. Not just anyone can keep up with me.”

Hoenir chuckled. Forseti frowned at him then stood, glowering down his nose at Loki. “Loki of Jotunheim, do you admit to these actions as they have been recounted?” 

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Can we move on?” Loki’s bond was so impatient. A constant whisper of _nearly there, nearly therenearlyTHERE…_

Forseti nodded. “Witnesses, the Grand Council thanks you for your cooperation. At this time the Council will withdraw to discuss the testimony. The Althing will reconvene tomorrow to begin the investigation.” The Asgardian rapped the staff against the floor to switch off the lights, and the judges filed out behind him. The galleries also began to empty, the chatter resuming now that Forseti had left the auditorium.

Frigga stood and wrapped her arms around Clint, squeezing slightly. Clint stood stiffly, glancing about his soulmates. What was he supposed to do here? Frigga released him with a tired little smile and exited the stage-floor. 

Thor coughed. “Would you like to take supper with the rest of the court? As my shield-mates, there will be places marked for you.”

“Is it required?” Bruce asked. 

“Not really. You are not members of the royal family, and you are not Asgardian. And even my parents have sometimes eaten elsewhere.”

“Good,” Tony said. “I am not in the mood to mingle. What I am in the mood for is a lot of alcohol and some really nice cushions to flop on.”

Thor smiled. “That can be arranged. Just follow me. Friend Clint? Are you coming?” 

“What?” Clint looked away from the guards leading Loki out through his special little door on the far side of the stage-floor. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure.”

Steve and Nat gave him funny looks, but no one said anything, and Thor took them back to their quarters, where a dinner spread was waiting for them in the common suite. Clint didn’t participate in the conversation, just filled a plate and picked at it. He couldn’t make sense out of that afternoon. Loki had given off so many mixed signals. It was like having a loose tooth. He _knew_ nothing would come of it, but he couldn’t help but wiggle at it, making the whole situation even more uncomfortable. 

Well, there was one thing he was certain of now: Loki had meant to fail. He’d never meant to conquer Earth, no matter how much he pontificated. Which made no fucking sense! Why go through all that work to get minions, the Tesseract, the iridium, open the portal over New York—why do all that when the desired goal was to get Hulk-smashed into the floor? He’d gotten literally nothing out of that except having his magic locked away and being dragged back home to go on trial. 

“Clint?” Nat asked, lowering her tankard. 

Clint set his plate aside. “Thor, where’s Loki being held?”

“The holding block for those currently on trial. It is adjacent to the auditorium.”

“Through that one door, right? ‘Kay, thanks.” He was nearly to the door before his soulmates had fully processed that.

“Clint, what are you doing?” Steve asked.

Thor stood. “Do you not need someone to lead the way?”

Clint waved him back into his seat with a mock scowl. “What kind of covert agent would I be if I got lost that easily?” And he slipped out the door and down the hall before they could ask any more questions. 

He took pains not to encounter anyone in the walk back to the auditorium. Behind the special door was a hallway leading to a stairwell. At the bottom of that was a door, flanked by two guards who looked up warily at his footstep. The one on the left opened his mouth.

“I’m not in the mood,” Clint snapped. “Can I talk to him or not?”

The two guards looked at each other. “There are have been no orders one way or another—”

“Good. Then open the door.”

They did, and Clint noticed that they didn’t close it all the way behind him, leaving about an inch of space between it and the doorjamb.   
The holding block looked like any other prison Clint had been in: wide hallway lined with cells, three to a side, each roughly ten foot by ten. Except, this being Space Viking-land, the cells had golden— _of course_ they were—energy fields instead of bars, and the cells beyond were perfectly white, lit from another invisible source that flooded the little space with indiscriminate, clinical light, while the hallway was left shadowed.

Loki was in the first on the left, sitting against the side wall with his legs stretched out, toying with something that looked like a plum, tossing it into the air. Clint stood in front of the energy field, arms crossed, and watched him. Loki refused to acknowledge his presence. 

They stayed that way for quite a while. 

“Do you want to be executed?” Clint asked into the silence. “I know I’m kinda ignorant here, but that seems like the kind of sentence these people would choose. You’re also not exactly helping your case.”

Loki kept his eyes trained on the plum. “Is that what it looks like to you? A monster drowning in self-hatred who just wants to end it all?”

Clint scowled “Can you for one second piss off with the diva stuff? Just for one fucking second.”

“Why when it is so much fun?” Loki asked. Even with the bond, Clint wasn’t sure if he was serious or just jerking his chain. “And besides, who are you to talk? Execution is not the only sentence in Asgard. There are also fines, service, and banishment, to name a few.”

“Are any of those a possibility here?”

Loki tilted his head to the side in acquiescence, but his bond wasn’t convinced. “I do not think I would mind dying,” he mused, looking down at the plum, turning it in his hands. He cracked a crooked smile. A smile still just this side of mad. “Though Hel will have a few choice words to say about it, I am sure, and you, my dear archer, will certainly have a hard time of it.” 

Clint shrugged, eyes narrowed. 

Hands stilling, Loki closed his eyes and leaned his head fully back on the wall. He whispered, “I am so tired. So tired of all of this.”

Clint regarded Loki for a few moments. “Falling off the bridge?”

Eyes still closed, Loki smiled, bond humming low and mournful and tired. “The Norns will play. Always, always.”

“So what did they keep you alive for? Does it have something to do with the fact that you never meant to win?”

Loki waved a dismissive hand. “You’ll soon learn of it. I think I’ll make you wait for the revelation.” He grinned at Clint. “I’m melodramatic like that.”

Clint stared, then shook his head with a reluctant chuckle. “Fucked up bastard. You’re not lying this time. Why?”

“Contrary to what you hear in the halls, I do not find it compulsory. Just useful.”

“And it’s not now?”

Loki did the head tilt thing again. Damn that was annoying. Well, he might as well keep going while Loki was being cooperative.

“That thing at lunch,” Clint said, watching Loki’s face closely. “What was that about?”

Loki started tossing the plum again. 

“Don’t even try to deny it.”

Loki glared at him out of the corner of his eye. 

Clint quirked a brow. 

Loki tossed the plum higher. His bond was roiling about sluggishly, reminiscent a snake trying to evade a trap but still torpid from lack of sun. Clint had a suspicion that if Loki wasn’t so dead on his feet—not that you would really notice from his appearance—his bond would give Tony’s a run for its money. Oh good god, did he even want two bonds like that in the back of his head? It was just asking for headaches. 

Loki pushed himself off the floor and stalked around the cell like a caged tiger, still tossing the plum. 

Clint waited. 

“Asgard,” Loki began, frowning at his plum, “…has a certain set of standards. She likes to hold everyone accountable to them except her own.”

Disparate pieces of information slotted into place. Clint rocked back on his heels. “Wait…are you saying you got angry because people were snubbing me?”

Loki gave the plum a particularly vicious toss, snatching it out of the air with vehemence. All the while his spacing never ceased. 

Clint couldn’t help but ask, _“Why?”_ It just didn’t make any sense.

“Tell me, Barton, do you feel you’ve done anything to deserve their behavior?”

“Hell no. And now that I think of it, how do you even know what they did, you were locked up! And you’re dodging my question. Is being honest no longer useful?”

“I don’t need to be told to know they did it. As I said, they are like children, petty and predictable. All they needed to know was that you are my shield-mate to decide your whole character for you.” Loki paced up to the energy field and leaned in, his eyes sparking. “Now tell me, Agent Barton,” he hissed. “Where did they earn the right to do that? How does that make them _worthy_ of all their power?”

Loki laughed caustically and resumed pacing. “And to think, I still tried to save them, even after all that. I must truly be mad,” he murmured. 

That derailed Clint from examining the bond. “Wait, what?”

Loki slumped back against his piece of wall and slid to the floor, eyes back on the plum. “Go away. I’m tired.”

Clint considered yelling at him, but Loki was back to twisting the plum in his fingers. He wasn’t going to get anything else out of him. 

He stood there a few moments longer, showing that he was leaving because he chose to, not because Loki told him to, watching him through the energy field. He had gotten some answers, he supposed. Not very helpful or in depth ones, but still answers. 

Clint poked at the bond again. For a moment in their conversation, Clint had felt echoes, a bitter bleakness that felt as familiar as his bow, but it was hidden now, submerged below where Clint was willing to go. Maybe he’d imagined it. Maybe Ullr had put the suggestion into his head.

Clint huffed and walked back to the door. Yeah, right. He wasn’t in the habit of lying to himself, either—recent circumstances being the exception—and after New York and all of SHIELD’s training, he knew when a thought wasn’t his own. No. He definitely hadn’t imagined it. So. They did fucking share something. But anything further than that remained to be seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: the Council begins to dig and no one is safe


	10. In Which Many Things Are Uncovered (and Argued Over)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so late, guys. It turns out that while I now have regular writing time IT IS EXTREMELY SHORT. As in I only get 700 words a time, if I’m lucky. So updates will still be coming, but the intervals will be longer than before. Sorry about that. But hey, we passed the halfway point, so the misery will only be for a little while longer.
> 
> This is also where I declare that I have never read the comics and while I have read and researched a great deal, I am still taking artistic license with a few finer points.
> 
> Also, typical canon violence and aftermath, but referenced not physically seen or produced. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> 8/1--  
> I'M SO SORRY. It's been like two months, I'm so sorry. I have been writing, I swear, but I'm also moving a third of the way across the country in a week. I got shit to get done. I can't say when the next chapter will be posted except that it definitely will be. I enjoy reading your comments too much to not give you new chapters. Thank you all for the kudos, support, and patience!!

The Warriors Three and Sif did not join them in the witnesses’ area the next morning, and Frigga once again captured Clint’s hand in a firm grip as Loki was chained to the stage-floor of the auditorium. Clint kept his eyes forward. All his soulmates had been curious about his talk with Loki the previous night, and those among them with little to no impulse control kept sending him concerned puppy looks, while those with iron-clad impulse control could do nothing to keep their burning curiosity and concern from coloring their bonds. While he appreciated the sentiment, Clint wished they’d just get off his back. It was annoying as all fuck, and the fact that he actually did share something big enough with Loki to produce a soulbond was not information he was ready to share, especially since they’d all immediately want to know what it was, and that was something he hadn’t told anybody. Not Phil. Not Nat. Phil might just have smacked him on the head, but Nat would probably never lose those shadows if he ever told her what the invasion had dredged up from the depths of his mind. 

Thankfully, his soulmates had a distraction to keep them occupied.

“So what you’re saying,” Tony said, “is that you can’t just ask Rudolph here to swear to tell the truth because it’s _against the law?”_

Thor’s bond fidgeted. “It has been written into the Althing’s legal codex for several millennia.”

“What has that got to do with anything?” Steve asked. “Just because it’s tradition doesn’t mean it’s written in stone.”

Thor looked pained. “Actually…”

Frigga leaned around Clint to look at the rest of the Avengers. “If _seiðkonur_ were to swear such an oath, they would be compelled by their blood to answer any question asked of them, and give nothing but the truth. Now please consider that. You are on trial before a democratic body with license to question you to till they are satisfied, trials by their nature are invasive, and you cannot lie because your very blood would rebel against you. Situations like that are ripe for abuse. I can offer you many trial records of _seiðkonur_ who had personal enemies in their local Thing. They did not end well.”

Bruce furrowed his brows as he thought. “But, couldn’t you simply word the oath to prevent that?”

“Even carefully worded oaths have loopholes if the enemy is persistent enough,” Frigga answered. “And it would have to be very carefully worded indeed, to cover all contingencies.” She gave them all a hard stare. “There are reasons this particular law has survived so many centuries.”

Tony’s bond still wouldn’t let it rest. “But that leaves you with a truth-spell that will only tell you if the person _believes_ it to be true, and even then it can only give you a binary answer. There are so many ways to cheat that, I could do it in my sleep—and this is _Loki_ we’re talking about.”

“And are your own truth-detectors any better?” Frigga challenged. 

Tony grumbled to himself but his bond knew a lost cause when he saw it. Bruce’s bond, on the other hand, percolated pensively. 

Forseti stood, rapped his staff against the floor, and the lights went up. “The trial of Loki of Jotunnheim is now reconvened for the investigative period. The gallery is _now_ allowed to contribute questions and discussion, but only _after_ the Council has finished their own. The remainder of the trial will take place with the truth spell activated.” Forseti thudded the staff and then gave it a little twist, like he wanted to grind something into the floor, and the knotwork beneath Loki’s feet lit up from the center out. It flared briefly when the light hit the edges, then subsided to a soft glow.

“And how is that even supposed to work?” Tony muttered.

“If no lie is detected, the light will stay constant,” Frigga answered. “If a lie is detected, it will go dark.”

“By unanimous vote,” Forseti continued, “the Council has decided to begin the investigation with the invasion of Midgard.” He sat down and nodded to Mimir and Hoenir. Mimir immediately handed it off to Hoenir with a grimace, which Hoenir returned with an amused look before turning piercing eyes on Loki. 

Clint almost thought he felt a tremor on Loki’s bond.

“Loki,” Hoenir said, stroking the tip of his beard, “I am curious about your discussion of freedom with the Midgardian director. Please explain what you meant by ‘freedom from freedom.’”

There was a stretch of quiet before Loki answered. “Freedom is the ability and agency to choose. To be free from freedom is to not have to choose.” The truth spell’s light stayed steady. 

“And why is that ‘life’s great lie’?”

Loki laughed. “Because we all think we want it, that it will be this wonderful glorious thing, that when we have it we will be _happy,_ but in reality freedom is what causes strife.”

Hoenir frowned. “Explain.”

“When were you, any of us, ever happiest? As you are now? Please. You were happiest when you were underneath the thumb of your parents, where everything was decided for you and you had no responsibility and no worries. If you cannot make decisions, you cannot make mistakes.” The light never wavered.

On the far right of the judges’ bench, Sege was tapping a thoughtful finger against her chin. Mimir glanced at her and grimaced. 

“What is the connection between that reasoning and invading Midgard?” Hoenir asked. 

“I was burdened with ‘glorious purpose.’”

“To make them happy through order?” Mimir demanded. “You truly believed that?” 

Loki shrugged. 

The light didn’t respond to that at all, and the two wizards glanced at each other before turning their laser beams of eyes on Clint. “Agent Barton,” Hoenir said, “please report the state of Loki’s bond with you while he was speaking.”

Loki’s bond immediately soured, a spark of anger cutting through the fatigue. 

Clint blinked at the wizards. Frigga squeezed his hand, and he glanced at her, then at Thor, and when both nodded with encouragement, he stood slowly and took a step forward. “Do I need to stand on the truth spell for this?”

“No,” Hoenir said. “Why do you ask?”

“Just, back home, witnesses have to swear an oath to tell the truth and all that, and if they don’t they go to jail.”

Hoenir actually looked slightly amused. “Well, you have already sworn to do so when you provided your account. It is assumed that that oath still stands. You also do not have much to gain by lying.”

“Right. Well,” Clint said, clearing his throat. “So, do you want his bond’s emotional state? Is that what you’re asking for?

Hoenir nodded. 

“Okay…” Clint pushed the weirdness away and considered the bond for a moment. “Ah, wistful, I guess? Resigned longing. Conviction.” He quirked his head to the side, frowning at the floor while he thought. “But…it’s all kinda…muted? Like, I dunno, it kinda feels more like a memory than actual emotion?”

The two wizards exchanged glances that doctors tended to share over your x-rays when they were particularly bad. 

“Eir,” Hoenir said, “would you please examine Loki’s metaphysics?”

Loki’s shoulders stiffened ever so slightly. 

Lady Eir raised an eyebrow at the old wizard. “I do not mind, but why do you wish me to do so?”

“Because that is not the youngster we taught,” Mimir growled, eyes locked on Loki. “The youngster we taught _hates_ being ‘under someone’s thumb.’” Surprise flashed on Loki’s bond. Apparently something must have shown on his face because Mimir scowled even deeper. “We are not senile yet, _hrafn._ Nor are we blind.”

There was a few minutes wait while a soul forge—which Frigga informed him was the table thing he had been examined on—was fetched. Minutes spent in silence, as Hoenir and Mimir seemed content to merely scrutinize Loki to within an inch of his very long life, and they currently had the floor. 

Then, once the soul forge had been brought in and positioned on the floor, there was a huge finagle about how to get Loki on it with all his chains. 

“Oh for—just unchain him,” Lady Eir eventually said, glaring at the guards over crossed arms. “Loki’s not an imbecile. He’s not suddenly going to attack me, are you, Loki?”

Loki sighed. “I do believe past experience has shown doing so is futile.”

Lady Eir glared at the guards again, who looked to Odin, who just waved a hand, and they stepped forward to unlock the chains, though they kept his hands locked to his belt. Once he was released, Loki slipped onto the table without prompting, though his bond wanted to be doing anything but. Lady Eir started the thing up, fingers twisting through the holographic controls as the air above Loki filled with glowing dust motes. She twitched a control, and they coalesced into a hologram of Loki’s body, though the hologram had its hands at its sides, which was just a tad confusing. Lady Eir started to move for another control when something in the hologram caught her eye, and she paused. Zoomed in slightly, rotated the hologram a few degrees. Then she scowled so darkly Clint wouldn’t have been surprised to hear thunder.

“Eir?” Hoenir asked. 

Lady Eir dug her fingers into the controls and did an inch-by-inch search of Loki’s body, then twisted a control to display his bone structure and repeated the process. Then what looked like his nervous system. Then his organs. By the end, the air around her was near crackling with suppressed energy. 

“Eir,” Mimir demanded.

Lady Eir blew up Loki’s hologram so that every person in the auditorium could easily see it. Loki twitched on the table. Hoenir and Mimir looked at it, and both immediately paled. 

“Loki,” Lady Eir said, her voice deathly calm, “has been tortured.”

Frigga gripped Clint’s hand so hard, he could have sworn his bones ground together, and he actually did hear thunder, which he was pretty sure was Thor’s doing, if the god’s bond was anything to go by. The rest of his soulmates’ bonds didn’t quite know what to think about this bit of information, though Tony’s had slithered into a dark place. Clint shot the engineer a surprised look. That darkness nearly matched his own, and the shadows in Nat’s eyes. Damn, he knew Tony had been broken, but he hadn’t thought it had been quite that much. 

The galleries didn’t quite know what to think either. 

Forseti pounded his staff to quiet the aimless chattering. “Please explain, Lady Eir.”

She jabbed a control viciously and Loki’s skin returned to the hologram with a network of lines and shapes highlighted. “These are scars. Scars that he most certainly _did not_ have upon his last examination before Thor’s coronation.”

“Could he not have received them in the battle on Jotunnheim?” Forseti asked, voice completely neutral. 

“Not unless an opponent managed to flay him instantly, no. And I do believe my staff would have noticed such a thing on his return. But if that doesn’t satisfy you—” Lady Eir manipulated a few more controls, and the skin disappeared to reveal the organs. A few, like the liver, lungs, and intestines, had sections that glowed a little brighter than their surroundings, while others, like a kidney and, strangely, the eyes, were bright all over. “Several organs have been damaged, the liver and digestive tract repeatedly, and his eyes and right kidney have completely regrown themselves.”

Oh. Clint was not new to torture or rough treatment, but that was on such a whole other level…he just might be sick. 

The organs were replaced with bones. Again, it seemed brighter spots correlated to damage. “His ribcage has been forced open and then held there,” Lady Eir continued, highlighting the relevant marks, “various bones throughout his body have been broken,” she highlighted the breaks all at once, “and all his fingers and toes have been removed, at least twice.” The muscles reappeared. “His muscles bear heat damage, which for a jotnar of his nature would have been a great deal of heat indeed to get that deep, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Loki is not at his full strength. His immune system is still compromised from all the physical trauma, and shows signs of mild, continuous inflammation in several areas.”

Thunder crashed even louder, and at this moment, Clint wouldn’t put it past Thor or either of the wizards to kill whoever annoyed them in the next few moments. 

Loki…Loki just stared stoically at the hologram, but his bond was writhing under a shroud of discomfort and vulnerability. This was evidence of severe helplessness and powerlessness—which, if Mimir was to be believed, was a combination Loki detested—and it was on full display to people who might very well sentence him to death at the end of this. Involuntarily, Clint started to imagine if he had had to do the same with Trickshot, or Swordsman, or even worse, his father. The sweep of revulsion that followed was large enough to draw his soulmates’ attention, including Loki, whose bond tried to jerk away as if burned. Without even thinking about it, Clint soothed it. Loki’s eyes widened marginally, but he kept them trained on the hologram. 

“Thank you, Eir” Hoenir said with clipped, polite syllables. “His metaphysics?”

Lady Eir nodded once, mouth set in a thin line, and switched out the hologram of Loki’s body for that complicated map, which she examined for a few moments before swapping for the mass of streamers. 

Clint’s had been well behaved compared to Loki’s. 

There were eddies and pockets of turbulence everywhere, while some streamers swirled in tight corkscrews, or doubled back on themselves—there were even a few full head-on collisions. Most of that mess was along the edges of the streamer mass. The central streamers were wide, deep, and flowed neatly, if perhaps a tad mischievously, and their calm neatness seemed to be taming the wilder outer currents a bit. Underlying them was a deep bank of faintly green dust motes. It swirled sluggishly in a counterclockwise fashion as if drugged, surrounded by a pale film that kept it rigidly contained and separated from the churning mess above it. The contrast between the two made the streamers look like absolute chaos. 

Strangely, one of the calmest streamers was the one that reached out off the table toward Clint. It still had the frenetic energy of a kindergartner, but all its dust motes knew where they were going and went straight for it. Clint decided that he’d think about that later and instead focused on the dozen or so stubs that branched off into nothing. They looked almost like his broken bond with Phil, but they had fuzzy bubbles all over their length and weren’t losing dust motes so much as disintegrating. All of them were surrounded in a cloud that glowed just faintly more yellow, and which seemed to be attacking them.

Lady Eir’s hands actually clenched through the holographic controls before she slowly relaxed them, one finger at a time, very deliberately. 

“I am sure you can observe as well as I can,” she frostily told the two wizards, “but for the rest of the Althing, let me make this very clear: someone has tried to forcibly bond with Loki fourteen times, with varying degrees of competency though each ultimately failed, and his mugr and hugr are scrambled as a result.”

Wait wait waitwait. Did that mean—was she saying Loki…Clint rubbed at his face tiredly. Great. Another point of contact. 

“Correct me if I am wrong, Lady Eir,” another woman said from the second tier, “but it looks as if his _seiðr_ is actively destroying them.”

Lady Eir nodded. “Yes, Brenna, you observe correctly. I would imagine that the existence of his _seiðr_ is what ultimately caused the bonding to fail. His magic is also more depleted than journeying across even the galaxy would warrant, since the tesseract provided most of the raw power. I assume it was actively aiding his _seiðr._ Am I wrong, Loki?”

Loki worked his jaw silently for a few moments. “…no.”

Hoenir and Mimir looked at each other and mutually grimaced. Miniature lightnings played through Hoenir’s fingers as he drummed them on the arm of his chair. “That would explain his out of character behavior,” he said. “He literally was not himself.”

“Thor!” Mimir snapped. Thor jumped out of his chair like he’d been shocked. “Explain yourself. How did you _not_ notice this?”

Thor’s bond shook as he ran a hand through his hair. “Honestly, Dreki-Friend?”

“Yes,” Mimir growled. “Honesty would be _much_ appreciated.”

Thor gathered himself. “I…did not think to look. After all the events on Midgard and the Bifrost, I was confused. Somewhere in there I had lost the brother I knew, and then I physically lost him before I could attempt to find him…” he trailed off with a pained expression. “I am a straightforward person, Dreki-Friend. I was simply happy that he was alive, and attributed my confusion over his actions and words to my own lack of understanding. And in my confusion I did not behave well.”

The wizards scrutinized him. “I do not know,” Mimir said, “if I should be pleased that you have made progress or enraged that it led to further misunderstanding.”

“You can hit him and still praise him,” Hoenir said.

“Gentlemen,” Forseti reprimanded. “If we would return to the topic of discussion.”

“Which is what?” Mimir demanded. “That Loki’s mind was so muddied he couldn’t think straight?”

“If that is truly the case,” a man in the third tier said—Clint was pretty sure he was the same one who had called for proof yesterday—“then would not the insanity plea pertain, as well as that of magical coercion?”

Tony’s bond was impressed. “You space Vikings have the insanity plea?”

“Of course,” Frigga said. “Someone who is not in control of their thoughts and abilities cannot be held completely accountable for the actions derived from them. That is especially true for magical coercion.”

“Perhaps,” Forseti answered the man. “The Council has sufficient proof that Loki’s mind was at one point tampered with, but the extent of its effects remains to be seen. Lady Eir, you say his mind is healing?”

“Yes,” she replied, resting her hands on the table and simply watching the hologram churn. “The oldest attempt is nearly gone, but the three youngest are still firmly anchored. My current prognosis is six months to full removal. Also,” she continued, tapping one finger authoritatively on Loki’s forehead. The film around the green cloud disappeared. The cloud slowly drifted upward to lap at the bottom of the streamers. The edge of pain on his bond vanished, and Loki closed his eyes, face blank as relief tiptoed down the bond. Guards all about the rooms bristled and dropped into a ready stance. “His magic does not need to be restrained. Levitating a pebble would be difficult for him at the moment.”

Forseti glowered at her. “That action required a full Council vote.”

“I am not in the habit of cruelty,” she snapped back. 

“May I get up?” Loki asked, eyes still closed. 

“Yes,” Lady Eir clipped out. She flicked the table off and stalked back to her seat. 

Loki waited a moment then slowly levered himself off the table and took his spot in the middle of the knotwork. The guards glanced between the Council and Odin before moving cautiously forward to once again chain him to the floor. 

Sege had watched Loki carefully the whole time, blue eyes sharp within her wrinkles. Now they were unfocused and tracked something invisible about the room. Clint would have wondered about senility if it wasn’t for the finger tapping on her knee. Eir shot her a look but held her peace. 

Forseti took the floor. “It needs to be determined how much of Loki’s actions on Midgard were caused by his mental imbalance and how much were of his own choosing. We shall begin with your attack on the Midgardian facility. It was unprovoked?”

“A better question,” Mimir interjected. “You were under threat?”

Loki snorted. “They pointed weapons at me, yes. And then threatened to collapse a building on my head.”

“And the events at Stuttgart,” Hoenir said, “that was mainly Agent Barton’s idea, yes?”

Clint stiffened slightly and was surprised when Loki did as well. 

“I required the iridium to open the portal.”

“But Agent Barton arranged the strategy, supplies, and carried out the theft,” Hoenir pressed. 

“…yes,” Loki gritted, the light under his feet steady. 

“Then neither of those are truly applicable,” Hoenir said with a hand wave. 

“ _Völva_ Sege?” Forseti asked, turning to her.

She tilted her head to the side. “His actions were perhaps extreme, but he had few patterns to choose from.” Her eyes narrowed, still utterly unfocused, and she twisted her fingers, humming under her breath. “Hmm. It appears that all other patterns ultimately led to larger loss of life.”

“According to the Midgardians, he killed seven people when he appeared,” Forseti said. “The theft resulted in three.”

Sege’s eyes tracked their way toward the upper tiers. “Having Agent Barton plan and execute the theft led to the most efficient strategy and thus the fewest casualties.”

Forseti looked at Loki. “Is this true?”

“You’re doubting the word of a _völva?”_

“She does not have access to your mind,” Forseti said. “Only to your actions as they have and perhaps may play out.”

Loki huffed a laugh. “What do you think, then? I will not deny I am one the most intelligent people in this room—” the light had no response to that, which was interesting but Clint wasn’t sure if it actually meant anything; Tony often said the same thing, and in his case it actually was sometimes true “—but as you might have noticed, Midgard is not the little child world you left behind. It is still a backwater, but they have made up for their lack of magic and _seiðr_ in surprising ways, ways that not even I can master in a handful of days.” Tony’s bond was immensely gratified when the light didn’t waver at that comment. “Now,” Loki continued, tilting his head back, “I could have simply charged through in a ‘straightforward’ fashion, but that is unnecessarily exhausting in more ways than one.”

Mimir snorted. 

Hoenir looked to Sege. “And when he first appeared?”

Sege’s eyes were tracing something high up by the top tier, dismay creeping across her face. 

“Sege?” Hoenir asked. 

Abruptly, her eyes dropped down to something below the floor as she pulled on the air with her fist, and her face blanched. Eyes refocused on the auditorium, she snapped them up to meet Loki’s. He met her gaze, bond wary and…uncertain? Clint frowned. It almost felt like the trickster didn’t know how Sege would react and that made no sense. Loki was a manipulative little shit. He always had his finger on the pulse of the room. 

“Sege,” Hoenir said, gentle but firm, “what patterns do you see?”

Sege gave herself a little shake. “I…do not think it is my place to speak. Suffice it to say that had Loki not acted as he had, the loss of life would have been catastrophic, and not on Midgard alone.”

The entire Council stared at Sege while confused twittering filled the galleries. The hairs on Clint’s arm closest to Frigga started to stand on end. Sege met Frigga’s eyes across the stage-floor and shook her head. Frigga’s hand tightened around Clint’s and the queen took a steadying breath before nodding back, the static charge disappearing from the air. Sege then swept her gaze across the galleries, singling out individuals and giving them the same head shake. When she finished, she turned back to her fellow Council members and nodded toward Loki. 

Mimir grumbled under his breath. Hoenir shot him a disapproving glance and turned back to Loki. “Continuing then,” he said. “Getting captured and the subsequent attack on the mortals’ ship?”

“Mine,” Loki said, bond tightening. 

“All of it?”

His bond tensed further. “Yes.”

“Mmm,” Mimir said, resting his chin on a fist as he stared at Loki. “And that agent all the Midgardians care so much about? Do forgive me for saying so,” he drawled, “but the manner of his death seems a little extreme. Not your usual efficiency.” 

Loki’s bond constricted so far it was hardly more than a thread. “His death had to be felt.”

Hoenir frowned at him. “Why?”

Loki didn’t answer. The bond wasn’t blocked off, but it was spiraled down too tight for much of anything to get through besides tense anxiety. Clint gave it a demanding tug. There was no way Loki was getting away with _not_ answering this question. 

Loki’s bond squirmed, but he did speak. “The Avengers were not the Avengers. They were scattered warriors who happened to all be in the same place. Even in my compromised state, alone I would have bested each of them. Only by coming at me as a group could they conceivably win. Agent Coulson’s death would draw them together.”

“And why did you pick him as your target?” Mimir asked. 

The bond picked up a flavor of almost desperation. Clint tugged on it harder. 

Loki snarled under his breath. “Because I knew his death would be the most felt by the majority of their number.”

Mimir might have said something at that point, but Clint didn’t hear it. He didn’t hear the curses dropping like bombs from Tony’s mouth, didn’t feel the raging storm of his soulmates’ bonds in the back of his head, didn’t see them all freeze then turn to him in concern. All he could think was: _oh my god, my fault, my fault. If I hadn’t told him, if I hadn’t said, he would never have known, Phil would still be—_

Then one bond managed to cut through the spiraling self-incrimination, puncturing it like a harpoon. _Don’t_ , the swirl of regret and admonishment said. _Not your fault. Not your fault._

Clint ripped away from Frigga’s grip and launched himself at Loki, wrapping his hands in the trickster’s coat and wrenching his face down so that Loki had nowhere to look but at him and his pain. “Like hell it isn’t!” he hissed. “You—”

“Yes, me!” Loki hissed right back. “ _I_ made the decision to target Coulson, _I_ stabbed him.”

“Which you would never have done if you hadn’t had the information! Information which I fucking _gave_ you.”

Loki raised an eyebrow mockingly. “And if you had been in any other state of mind, you wouldn’t have, but I _made_ you. You had no conscious choice in the matter, so it’s _not your fault.”_

Beneath them, the floor was lit with _truthtruthtruth_ for all the auditorium to see, but neither was paying any attention.

“So what?” Clint demanded. “Having no fucking mind to speak of absolves me of all guilt in the matter? That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“Guilt is not the same thing as fault,” Loki challenged. 

“Don’t even,” Clint said, grip white-knuckling. “Don’t even.”

Loki swore under his breath, eyes falling shut briefly. “His death was necessary, Barton.”

“And _why_ was that, Loki?” Hoenir broke in, startling the two soulmates. Neither had realized their voices had risen loud enough to be heard by the rest of the auditorium. The two wizards were gazing at them, eyes unyielding but coolly clinical. “Why did the agent ‘need’ to die?”

Loki ground his teeth. His bond was exceptionally unhappy. “I needed to lose. And lose badly. I couldn’t do that unless the Avengers were a united front.”

 _Truth,_ the floor said. 

“You needed to _what?”_ Clint said, brows rising to his hairline. 

“I told you it was kooky!” Tony crowed, bond gleaming with self-satisfaction before he remembered where he was then sobered, sheepish but stubbornly refusing to lose the smug glow. The wizards’ eyes flicked to him briefly before resettling on Loki even more intensely than before. 

_“Why?”_ Mimir pressed. He leaned forward in his seat, the better to pin Loki. “What would have happened if you had won? Who was trying to break your mind? Who had you, Loki?”

Loki hesitated. Looked, inexplicably, at Sege. She nodded, hands tense in the other’s grasp in her lap.

Loki took a breath. “Thanos.”

The wizards reared back in their seats like threatened cobras. Clint wouldn’t have been all that surprised for Mimir to start hissing; the air around them was certainly obliging. In fact, the agitated hiss of the wind swirling around the two wizards was the only sound in the auditorium. Thor’s bond was so shocked it might as well have been petrified. 

As one, the Council looked to the truth-spell on the floor, but its light had never wavered. 

“Agent Clint Barton,” Forseti barked. “Does Loki speak the truth?”

Clint glanced around, his rage and offense swiftly disappearing in the wake of a slow slithering trepidation. “Uh…yeah? Why? Who’s this Thanos guy?”

“The Mad Titan,” Frigga said with quiet horror, “is a dark plague upon the universe.”

“Um…” Tony said, “yeah, that’s not actually all that helpful.”

Loki chuckled, a dry and crackling sound like that of a gallows swinging. “Allow me to enlighten you, Stark. Thanos has lived an immeasurably long time, long enough for his birth and early life to be lost in the bowels of history, and this longevity has made him go quite mad. He believes that Death has personally rejected him, and so attempts to woo her good favor by sending her ‘gifts.’ As many as he can.”

Clint watched Loki warily. “Do I even want to know?”

“Entire star systems,” Mimir said. “Whole races erased without malice or regret.”

“He was, in fact,” Hoenir said, “the threat that created the coalition known as the Nine Realms, all those many millennia ago. No single realm could do more than hold him off, and even that only for a short time. To do anything more serious required unprecedented power and forces. The raging miasma of magic and _seiðr_ from the ensuring battle tore a hole in the very fabric of the universe, crushing and devouring the planets in the vicinity. Thanos was sucked into its pull—”

“—much like you, _hrafn,”_ Mimir said, eyes narrowing to slits. 

“It had not been my intention,” Loki said softly, looking over Clint’s shoulder to meet his mentor’s eye with his own aching ones. 

“Wait, please,” Steve said, raising a hand politely. “Are you saying that if you hadn’t lost, this Thanos person would have—”

“Bathed Midgard in the blood of your children and then some, yes,” Loki said. “He would have also gained access to the Tesseract along with the Mind Gem already in his possession, and the resulting destruction would have shattered Yggdrasil.”

Clint stared at him, his hands dropping away from Loki’s coat. “You really were telling the truth.”

Loki scowled at him. “Have your ears been damaged or do you suffer from memory loss?”

“No, it’s just…” Clint gave a one-shouldered shrug, still staring at Loki incredulously. “There’s a difference between knowing and _knowing,_ and with you it’s hard to be fucking sure. You also have a history of melodramatic megalomania—” he ignored Loki’s raised eyebrow “—so sue me for taking your declaration of having saved the whole fucking universe with a good helping of salt. Especially when you just dropped that particular bomb and then ended the conversation very melodramatically.”

Loki’s mouth twitched in agreement. His bond, though, kept Clint searching his eyes. “I thought you wanted this to come out,” he said. 

Loki’s eyes darkened as his jaw clenched. “Its revelation was inevitable,” he gritted quietly. “That does not mean that I have to be joyous about it or facilitate its occurring.”

“But…why?” Clint asked, keeping his voice at the same volume. “You just saved all their lives. Don’t you want to rub their noses in it?”

“One act does not erase a lifetime of misdeeds,” Loki said, that same bleakness that had once graced his eyes in a certain interrogation cell creeping back, only this time the bond wasn’t blocked and Clint had his metaphorical feet knocked out from under him by its tidal wave. “Fire will not always destroy but at its heart that is all it will ever be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but it was giving me a headache reading it over and over to find any brain farts and it just kept getting longer and I haven't updated in weeks so...yeah. 
> 
> Up next: Loki has the floor


	11. In Which Loki Says His Piece (and There is Great Debate)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Just take that notion of regular updates and throw it out the window. Math is ruling my life with an iron fist. But this WILL get finished as I refuse to abandon things once I get started. And we're really soooo close. Like maybe five chapters (if characters would just stop popping out of the woodwork and demanding page time). 
> 
> WARNING: descriptions of torture in the beginning. Or put another way: Loki gets vicious. But it's only for a handful of paragraphs and doesn't go into excruciating detail.

Forseti rapped his staff loudly before Clint had processed that statement enough to answer. “Loki of Jotunheim,” he said, “I believe you owe the Althing an explanation.”

Loki scowled at the judge over Clint’s shoulder. “I am not a dancing bear.”

“I doubt anyone here would accuse you of that,” Hoenir said.

“However, Loki,” Mimir interjected, “I detect several contradictions in this little tale so far.”

Loki and Mimir glowered at each other for several long moments, Loki’s bond twisting viciously in the back of Clint’s mind. He couldn’t decide if it was more that of a child throwing a tantrum or that of the captured frantically trying to escape. Finally, Loki clenched his jaw. “Sit down, Barton.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

Loki turned his baleful—and somewhat ironic—stare on Clint. “This will not be a short tale and I am sure you do not wish to inconvenience yourself on my account.”

Clint set his own jaw mulishly and considered staying exactly where he was. Except that exactly where he was was directly between Loki and the judges. That would get awkward real fast, not that it wasn’t already. Then maybe taking a step to the side and staying there. Except that would convey solidarity, wouldn’t it?

Loki smirked.

Refusing to acknowledge it, Clint stamped back to his chair and threw himself down into it. Frigga patted his knee sympathetically but kept her eyes on Loki.

“Now,” Loki mused to himself, “where to start my sordid little tale…?”

Mimir rolled his eyes but Hoenir stopped him from interrupting. 

Loki thought for a few moments. “Well, I suppose it is best to start with something my audience knows, considering your complete lack of ability to comprehend anything the least bit novel. So we’ll start with my ‘fall.’” He bowed mockingly once against to the galleries. “Allow me to set the stage. The Bifrost had been locked open upon Jotunheim, pouring all of its energy upon the realm and tearing it to pieces. Thor then came along and smashed it. All that energy no longer had an anchor or guidance. It was into this directionless, tumultuous torrent of energy that I fell.”

Loki paused. “If I am to be forced to be completely and wholly honest, no. I did not intend to survive it.”

All the Avengers winced as Thor’s bond spiked through their minds. The Warriors Three and Sif seemed more accustomed to his reaction though it still unsettled them with its vehemence. 

“As I am sure many of you would have been gratified with my death,” Loki continued, “you will be happy to know that my continued existence was not pleasant. I was in a place with no water, no air, no dimension. The Bifrost’s energy wrenched my body every conceivable direction, often simultaneously. I realize none but the mages in this audience will have the faintest glimmer of what that was like, but allow me to explain it to you: something you cannot see, hear, touch, or fight has plunged hooks into every inch of your skin, muscle, and bone, attached those hooks to strings and tied those strings to the horns of stampeding _valravens._ Your bones are tugged one way while your skin is pulled in the opposite, your blood vessels a third, and your organs yet another. You feel all of this and yet somehow you remain alive. You remain alive and _conscious._ For time unimaginable.” 

Loki allowed time for the audience to appreciate his description. Clint breathed deeply through the visceral sensation the trickster’s words evoked. He could almost _feel_ something pulling on his bones. 

“I can only presume that my magic roused to shield me, as there is no physical way I should have been alive. So this is how I landed among Thanos’ court: exhausted and damaged, my magic depleted to a bare sliver of its proper strength.” Loki’s bond skittered with trepidation but he barely paused. “In this condition, it is hardly a wonder that Thanos and his dog managed to create a poppet with such loyalty that I would happily agree to bind my mind to two Infinity Stones.

“On Midgard—”

“Hold!” a man from the sixth gallery shouted. “You skipped your entire time with Thanos. How is that permissible? Is that not a lie of omission?”

Loki tilted his head towards the speaker. “Did you see the light dim? No? Then it is fine.”

“The truth-spell is not perfect, and you well know it,” a woman said. “It will not detect an omission as a lie.”

“Because it is not,” Loki snapped, bond beginning to tie itself into a knot that made Clint’s head ache. 

“It is if the absence of that information influences the perception of the listener,” the woman countered. 

“By the Norns, shut—!” Lady Eir began to bark, but Loki rolled right over her.

“Oh so you wish to know every detail, every second of my suffering? The insufferable, incorrigible trickster finally brought low? Very well then. Your wish is my command. Thanos wanted to know who and what had managed to infiltrate so far into his lair with neither ship nor fanfare and tossed me to his lieutenant. This Other took great pains to determine every characteristic of my being. I was chained to a rock cast adrift in the vacuum of space to see how long I would survive. They left me there for three days.” Tony’s bond flipped and he muttered darkly to himself about aliens and the laws of physics. “Then they dumped me in a vat of liquid helium.” Bruce choked. “I survived that for five and a half days before my organs started to freeze, was allowed three hours to recover my breath then dangled inside the magma chamber of a volcano. The sudden heat sublimed the frost in my skin, and what the ice crystals didn’t destroy, the resulting pressure shredded.”

Loki quirked his head pensively at the silent galleries, his demeanor almost bored. But like was practically the norm for this trial, his bond was in entirely different territory. Clint floundered under its weight, trying to keep his head above the flood of sensations spewing from it. His chest felt strained to breaking. Ice was forming all across his skin, penetrating to his bones. Heat engulfed his feet through his boots. Blood rushing from a million little wounds. He could _smell_ his hair singeing. 

On his left, Nat sidled closer, pressing her reassuringly solid shoulder against him. 

Loki asked the galleries, “Are you enjoying yourselves? Reveling in my suffering? I’ll continue then. The environmental experiments gave them a rough idea of my regenerative capabilities, so for the finer experiments, they chopped off my fingers and toes.” Clint flinched as a knife slipped between the bones of his hands. “For their own convenience, you realize. It is difficult to lock pick when one has no fingers, or run when one cannot balance.

“As you mages will know, casting magic without the helpful focus of a physical action is akin to trying to hold water with bare hands. Doable but frustratingly difficult, and the pain made the required concentration nigh impossible.

“But for those of you who disdain magic for its cowardly ways, imagine, if you will—I’m sure you have the capability in you somewhere. Struggling all you want but all you can do is shove, and that only weakly. Your body is broken from lack of air, lack of food, lack of water, too little pressure, too much pressure, covered in frostbite which is covered burns, mangled with a thousand wounds, and your captors haven’t cauterized anything so when you do make contact your own blood slides you off, without doing a lick of damage. They don’t bother to restrain you because they know that you can do nothing, and you know that you can do nothing, and the sheer powerlessness of your position is soul-crushing.

“The Other moved to my organs—”

“Loki!” Frigga snapped.

“What?” he snarled, glaring over his shoulder. His bond froze. Clint glared back at him, willing his hand to stop shaking in Frigga’s as it clenched on the memory of blood and burns, dark and helplessness. It wasn’t his memory, it wasn’t his pain, god damn Loki. 

Loki glanced at Frigga. His eyes widened for a brief flicker, and he turned back toward the judges, bond flinching away from Mimir and Hoenir’s expressions as well.

No one in the auditorium spoke. All the Avengers were caught in their own memories. Thor’s bond was a thick soup of pain, guilt, and thunderous rage. Even Thor’s friends looked appalled and, in Fandral’s case, faintly green. Several people up in the higher galleries rushed out. 

Loki took a deep breath. Remorse slipped down his bond, awkward and agonized and defeated. 

“What Thanos was most interested in,” he said into the space, “was my ability to walk the hidden paths. He was well aware of the Tesseract’s location as the mortals had been playing with it for some time. However, he and his mages had no way to grasp its energy from such a distance.

“By this point, the Other had a thorough understanding of my psyche and they knew I would never aid them by my own volition. So,” his bond shivered with instinct-deep revulsion, “Thanos tried to instill loyalty by forcing a soulbond.”

“What?” Mimir interrupted. “Thanos did personally?”

“Forgive me, Loki, for interrupting,” Hoenir said, brows drawn, “but even with possession of the Mind Gem, Thanos would need _seiðr_ to accomplish such a feat, and he has none. Only a brute, rudimentary skill at magic.”

“Which is exactly what he has of _seiðr,_ ” Loki replied. “You don’t truly think he spent his whole banishment simply slaughtering, do you? He interrogated and dissected as many _seiðkonur_ he could get his hands on until he discovered a way to bioengineer a semblance of the ability.”

Sege looked like she had been gutted and filled with worms. “That…”

Loki threw her a look. 

She clamped a hand over her mouth and forced deep, long breaths. Faint retching could be heard in one or two of the galleries.

“Obviously,” Loki continued, “it is not a finessed control. He’s like a child attempting to wield a man’s war hammer. Between that and the fact that my _seiðr_ had been relatively untouched, that first bond was uprooted within a handful of hours.

“So Thanos tried again.”

Clint jerked away from that bundle of memories. Even the vague impressions were way too close to his own.

“Eventually, he surrendered to the conclusion that the amount of energy required to keep a forced soulbond remotely effective across such a vast distance was more than he had at his disposal. But, as Lady Eir has so graciously established, this was after many attempts, and my _mugr_ and _hugr,_ were so damaged they might as well have been in pieces. I had no idea who I was or what I wanted or what I needed. In this state, it was a simple matter for the Other to mold me into the petty, jealous second prince who attempted to retrieve them the Tesseract for Midgard’s throne.”

“Wait.” Loki’s bond near growled as Thor stood. “Does that mean—brother, on the mountain, does that mean you truly believed that?”

Loki barked a laugh with no humor. “Yes. I _believed._ I believed then, and I believed when I first arrived—and if I am to be brutally beholden to your whims, yes, I still believe to some affect that happiness cannot come through choice.” His bond was so bitter Clint felt his mouth puckering. He tried to hide it by rubbing a hand over his face as if exhausted. Which he really was by this point. Dammit, he could not _wait_ for this whole thing to be over. 

Loki continued, “I believed that up until I had enough time on Midgard for my _seiðr_ to sufficiently tidy up. From then on, I knew that something was not right in my head, another point which I’m sure you will all see the irony in, as you have all believed that yourselves for some time.”

Hoenir rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Facts, Loki. Facts. If I must keep reminding you of this, I will be forced to conclude that you are the most exceptional actor and have never paid attention to a word of our lectures.”

“Facts are not the point of this farce,” Loki snapped back. “This whole charade is for entertainment nothing more.”

Mimir leaned forward slightly. “Are you accusing the two of us of base idiocy, _hrafn?”_

Loki paused, his bond spinning the thought as if it had truly never occurred to him.

“I thought not.” Mimir leaned back in his seat, eyes glittering hard as obsidian. “Continue—with the _facts_ only. There’s no need to wind idiots up.”

Loki snorted, his bond deeply disagreeing. “Fine. I knew I could not allow the invasion to succeed as planned, so I set out to sabotage it. I gathered—”

“You are being deliberately obtuse,” Mimir growled.

“What?” Loki asked. “You demanded only the facts.”

Mimir’s glare could have cracked stone. “You know very well how this trial works.” Teacher and student locked eyes and refused to give an inch. 

After a few moments of silence, Clint leaned toward Nat. “School must have been an entertaining place.”

Nat snickered. “I’d have brought popcorn.”

Hoenir let the stare-off continue a bit longer before asking, “Do you want the trial to be over, Loki?”

“Yes.”

“Then follow the protocol and detail your reasons.” Loki’s stink eye swung over to Hoenir, who reacted not a wit. “That is the entire point of asking for your part of the story. Why did you stay on Midgard when you realized something was wrong? You were not tethered there. You could have retreated to fully heal.”

Loki’s bond bubbled petulantly. Clint tugged on it. He wanted this whole production over and done with too. Loki bristled.

“If I had done that,” Loki answered, “the invasion would have still happened. The forced soulbonds were already in place. Even if I was not there to drive them, there was enough false loyalty to ensure a portal would have been opened. To succeed in sabotage, I needed to be there.”

“But… _why?”_ an elderly man from the top gallery asked. “Why should you care if the invasion did or did not happen?”

Loki scowled upwards. “Once again your arrogance struts uninhibited. Midgard is not simply a tiny backwater not worth your attention. It is called ‘Midgard’ for a reason, you unillumined twit. From there, Thanos would have easily marched on the rest of the Nine Realms and it is my great misfortune to live here.

“It is also,” Loki continued, his bond ablaze, “not revenge if I am not involved. It is merely happenstance. Thanos needed to know he had not broken me as he imagined.”

“But you lost,” a man from the other side of the gallery pointed out. “What kind of revenge is that?”

“You clearly lack imagination as well as intelligence,” Loki drawled. “Not to mention retention. I did not lose. I thwarted Thanos’ grand plan. Now, if I get on with my forced soul baring? Thank you very much. As I was saying, I needed to sabotage the invasion, so I started to gather information. I question Barton, I questioned Selvig in his brief moments of dimmed mania, I question everyone I had taken.” Clint blinked. He hadn’t known that part. A vein of tension bled from his shoulders. 

“From that wealth of information, it was child’s play to devise an invasion scheme doomed to fail. An opposing force of sufficient strength already existed. They just needed a little motivation. Thus the attack on the helicarrier and the death of Agent Coulson. I even gave them a handicap by modifying Selvig’s little device to bottleneck the Chitauri forces. The Chitauri knew the Tesseract could open a much wider portal, but being the near mindless bloodthirsty beasts they are, they came anyway.” Loki’s bond preened. “Thanos and the Other knew it too, and I’m sure it didn’t take them long to figure out why.”

Clint eyed Loki’s turned back the same way he had the circus’ “fortune teller” whenever she started spouting predications of artichoke rain and spaghetti lightning and a congress run by cats. Anyone who was happy about pissing off an insane alien powerful enough to slaughter solar systems was not right in the head themselves. 

“The Avengers cooperated beautifully, as they have said. All I had to do was stand by and watch. Then the Hulk smashed me into the floor, and the resulting concussion managed to finally wipe the last of the haze from my mind, quite similar to what Romanoff did to Barton. And the rest is as the Midgardians have described it.” Loki titled his chin up at the judges. “Satisfied?” 

The judges said nothing. Hoenir was stroking his beard, Mimir was still grouchy, Lady Eir still looked pissed from earlier, and Forseti was his immutable self. Sege was busy tracking invisible somethings across the auditorium, her hands flicking in her lap like she was playing with one of Tony’s holograms. 

Hoenir hummed to himself. “I notice that you skipped over your conversation with Thor when he brought it up.”

“It was not important.”

“Wasn’t it?”

Loki glared at his other teacher. Clint rolled his eyes and tugged on the bond again. Annoyance flared on it. “The conversation had no bearing on what came after. Therefore, it is not important.”

Sege made a noise, her eyes focused on the far corner. “The threads are jumbled there. Tell me, Loki, what was the state of your _mugr_ and _hugr_ at that point?”

“Recovered enough.” Feeling very much like a nursemaid, Clint prodded again. Insistently. There was more there, he could feel it. Loki gave him the emotional equivalent of the finger. Clint would not be deterred. Loki’s jaw worked. “…as Thor had been the focal point for the Other’s manipulation, his presence made it difficult to keep a clear mind.”

“So that was the time you were least yourself,” Mimir said.

“Baring my arrival on Midgard, yes.” Loki’s bond was decidedly unhappy with Clint. Clint couldn’t give a fuck. 

A woman from one of the aristocratic galleries near the floor asked, “Speaking of, why did you take the archer? Out of all the people in that room, why him?”

Loki gave the woman a patronizing look, though his bond was beginning to curl around itself. “The only person left alive in that room that I didn’t take was Director Fury.”

“But the archer was the first,” the woman countered. “Was it because he was closest to your position?”

Even as Loki’s bond spun with ideas, the conviction that there was nothing he could say to such a direct question without the light going out was unshakeable. Suddenly Clint gave a fuck. 

When Loki said nothing, the woman pressed, “Why was his heart important?”

“What does it matter?” Loki snapped. “I could not think straight. Leave it, Sigyn.”

The woman made what she thought of that quite clear. “I think you took him on purpose,” she continued. “I think you knew he could help you. _Völva_ Sege, am I right?”

Sege’s eyes raced up the space, jumping from side to side. “Hmm,” she hummed after a moment. “Loki’s plan would not have gone as smoothly, and in some cases not at all, without Agent Barton’s aid.”

“You see?” the woman said triumphantly. “You said yourself that your _seiðr_ was relatively unscathed. You probably had an unconscious knowing and acted upon it.”

Loki’s bond ruthlessly smothered a flare of irritated rage. “Sigyn, you keep insisting on virtues that _are not there.”_

“You know I’m right. That’s why you’re annoyed.”

“Can we move on?” Loki growled. “There was a point to forcing me to divulge all this. Get to it.”

Forseti raised a brow at Loki but turned to the rest of the judges. “Do you have further questions?” Hoenir and Lady Eir shook their heads. Mimir was about to say something then decided against it and shook his head as well. Sege was lost in the threads again. “Do the galleries have any further questions?” No one offered any. “Very well, we will proceed. The purpose of this current mode of questioning was to determine how much of Loki’s actions were caused by magical interference and his resulting mental imbalance, and how much were of his own choosing, and thus whether if the magical coercion or insanity plea applies. The Council is now opening the matter to discussion.”

“What is there to discuss? Of course it does!” Lady Eir snapped, eyes blazing. “Loki was tortured physically and magically until he agreed to do what Thanos wanted. That lands this solidly in _both_ pleas.”

“Not necessarily,” Hoenir said.

Lady Eir swiveled, ready to sear him alive. 

“I agree,” another woman from the galleries said before she could open her mouth. “Yes, Eir, I also agree with you,” she added when Lady Eir turned on her. “Loki’s mind was very much not his own when he came to Midgard, but after a point he started to make many decisions that contradicted and outright thwarted the intended outcome of the magical coercion, and also managed to carry them through. That shows that Loki’s rationality was not completely compromised.”

“The pleas are not decided by _degrees!”_ Lady Eir retorted.

“Loki is not normal,” Mimir said. “He does not fit into the pattern of the precedents. They had either no magic or no _seiðr,_ or neither. Loki has both, so the coercion resulted differently. Do not allow habit to blind you, Eir.”

Lady Eir narrowed her eyes to slits. “You will pay for that comment when next you run afoul in your travels, Mimir. I am not falling back on _habit_. I’m looking at _consequences_ and _reasons._ Are we to declare that you are still wholly responsible for your actions if you can throw off the main effects of coercion but have no recourse to fully escape the outcome? That’s hypocrisy. Just because there are choices available does not make them _viable._ Would you condemn Loki because he chose to continue the path the coercion set him instead of letting Thanos gain a foothold in the Nine Realms? That would contradict the entire foundation of our legal code!”

“Why are you even discussing this?” Loki demanded. “Just blame me like you always do and get on with it.”

The judges stared at him, Mimir and Lady Eir looking ready to rip him a new one. Clint squinted at Loki. What was he trying to do? Messing with judges was never a good idea. Unless you were Tony, but that was dancing on thin ice. 

“I’ll ask you again, _hrafn,_ ” Mimir said, voice diamond hard. “Are you accusing _me_ of base idiocy?”

“It hardly matters what _you_ think,” Loki snapped. “Public opinion does not adhere to wisdom.”

“ _Public opinion_ is not determining your degree of guilt!”

Loki sneered. “The Althing can veto Council decisions if it feels strongly enough. It has before. And why should the Althing want to do anything but convict me? Aren’t I always the scapegoat?”

“You do have friends here,” Sigyn responded hotly.

Loki threw back his head and laughed.

_—the look on Barney’s face, his eyes before he turned his back and slammed the trailer door in disgust, the shocked betrayal souring his stomach—_

_—turning away from the target, face flushed with the triumph of having executed his first split arrow, only to see Trickshot glowering at him like he had committed high treason. “Think you’re so great, do you?”—_

_—“Why are you so shocked, Clint? I’m just taking a little off the top. The circus makes ten times this in one hour. You can get in on it too, if that’s what’s got your craw all in a twist. You can be my business associate.”—_

_—chest aching as he gasps for breath to keep running. The other mercs have made it to the ratty old truck. The driver’s already revving the engine. “Wait! I’m—”_

_“We’ve got our money. You’re on your own, kid.”_

_The truck peeling out of the alley. Without him. He can hear the roar of the bodyguards bouncing off the high walls. Oh god, where does he run?—_

He was pulled back to the auditorium by Frigga squeezing his hand, the warmth of her hands around his driving back the bleakness slipping through his mind like fog, driving it back onto Loki’s bond. He blinked. What the hell, this was worse than when Nat’s bond had first formed. She hadn’t had any training either, but she at least had mental discipline. Forget that this was Loki’s first bond—you’d think a _mage_ would at least be able to rein in his own mind! What the hell was wrong with the fucking guy?

Frigga’s eyes were full of concern, but Clint just squeezed her hand back in thanks and ignored the question flickering across her face and his soulbonds. He would have to face the music eventually, maybe, if he couldn’t shake them off, but like hell was he saying anything in front of all of Asgard.

An offended murmur was filling the galleries. 

“Perhaps the Althing should be concluded for the day,” Hoenir commented. “There is much to discuss, and much of it will be quite technical. Surely there is no need to keep everyone here for that.”

Forseti thought about it and eventually nodded. “I concur with your assessment, Lore-Keeper.” He stood and cast his gaze around the galleries. “The Council will withdraw to discuss how and if the pleas apply. The Althing will reconvene tomorrow where we will pass our decision and continue the investigation.” He rapped the staff against the floor. The knotwork below Loki’s feet shut off, leaving his figure no more illumined than the rest of them. For some unfathomable reason, it made him appear smaller, run down. No longer Loki, ‘god’ of mischief, mythological figure, would-be conqueror of Earth. Just a man—or alien, or whatever—gazing at the inevitable with no recourse and wondering why the hell it was making him suffer the agony of waiting for it. 

He didn’t look at Clint as the guards unchained him from the floor and led him out. 

Frigga turned to Clint fully. “Are you alright?” She ran her hand over his cheek in a motherly gesture. “You looked lost for a moment.”

“Just something Ullr said. No, Tony, I’m not going to tell you. Suck it up.”

“I didn’t say a word!”

“Soulbond, tin-head.”

“Suddenly I understand how only Pepper and Rhodey can really wrangle you,” Nat mused. 

“I do not get ‘wrangled,’” Tony retorted, probably just for the sake of retorting as his bond knew much better. 

“Yes you do,” Nat, Bruce, and Steve answered in unison, bonds coloring with amusement. 

The conversation started to devolve into bickering and Clint turned his attention back to the Queen, who looked contemplative. 

“Who is Sigyn?” Clint asked.

Going along with his change in subject, Frigga answered, “Sigyn is an old childhood friend of Thor and Loki. Well,” she amended with a head tilt—obviously where Loki had picked up the gesture—“mainly of Loki. They got into such mischief together,” she added with a fond smile, “though I do believe her presence tempered Loki’s wilder impulses. When they got older, their friendship nearly developed into something else, but then it didn’t. I was never sure what happened.”

“You didn’t find out?” 

Frigga chuckled. “All children need secrets from their mothers. It aids in their becoming their own person, and there are some things I am sure no son wishes to discuss with his mother.”

Clint grunted noncommittally as he thought, spinning theories to see if any fit the facts. For the questions he needed answers to, this was probably the best and more reliable—he winced, well, maybe not _reliable_ but definitely better than the alternatives—source of information. Thor’s friends and Thor himself had obviously been blind to too much. 

“Can you introduce me?” he asked.

Frigga pursed her lips, searching his eyes thoughtfully, then nodded. Rising, she said farewell to Thor and the Avengers, pulled Clint to his feet and led him from the auditorium like a tug-boat bent on safe harbor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am borrowing the idea of valravens from _All the Wind-Wracked Stars_ by Elizabeth Bear. Because I needed something other than a bilgesnipe, historically horses were used for drawing and quartering, and I think two-headed valraven steeds are cool. 
> 
> Up next (whenever that happens): a friendly chat, the Council give their decision, and the trial moves onto _Thor_


	12. In Which There is Conversation Over Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, it has been a long time. Sorry about that. The intervals probably aren't going to get much shorter, I'm afraid. I will attempt but no promises. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience, and happy reading!

Frigga waylaid the first servant to cross their path and requested Lady Sigyn’s presence in one of her private rooms, along with a dinner service. “It is the one place you can be guaranteed there will be no interruptions,” she explained to Clint after the servant had bobbed a curtsy and set off. “Anywhere else servants may come with missives, aristocrats can come knocking. There, they cannot enter without permission and an invitation, the only exception being if that section of the palace is breached under siege and I happen to be in it.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Clint tried to argue.

“I have the gift of _seiðr_ , young Hawkeye,” Frigga said. “I do not have the analytical capability of Sege, but my immediate knowings are the most accurate in Asgard. I _know_ when something is necessary.”

Clint squinted at her. “Something I need to know?”

Frigga opened a door and ushered him in with an amused little smile. She guided him through a posh while still Viking suite to a living room and tugged him down beside her on the couch, her eyes searching his face. Clint fidgeted under her scrutiny. “Agent Barton, do let me know if I offend or press too deeply somewhere personal, however…I am concerned. You became lost on the bond for a moment. One must either possess an extraordinary sensitivity to such things with little control, which I am aware is not correct for you, or an extraordinarily deep resonance with what is being transmitted.”

Clint stilled, rifling through possible retorts, then swore colorfully and collapsed against the back of the couch, scrubbing his face with his hands viciously. “Yeah,” he muttered finally, hands still covering his face. “What of it?”

“I do not hold judgement, Agent Barton. You are a holder of many bonds, which shows the breadth and depth of which you are capable of understanding. That tells me much of your character.” Clint stared at her through his fingers. He’d never thought about it like that. Frigga’s expression twisted. “It is no secret that my son has endured a great deal of torment in his life and for you to resonant so strongly with it…I merely wish to assure myself of your wellbeing. I have no wish to fail a son a second time.”

Clint bolted upright. “Whoa, whoa, _what?_ ” His soulbonds were lighting with alarm. Clint deflected them off absently. “I’m not—”

“You are bonded to both Loki and Thor,” Frigga said as if it should be obvious. 

Clint just stared at her. “Right…” He ran a hand through his hair and took a breath. “Right. Okay. Whatever, space Vikings. I can deal with that. Look, your majesty—”

“Frigga, please,” the queen insisted.

“…Frigga. It’s fine. I’m normally not that easy to overwhelm, it’s just that this has been a shitty week and my defenses are shot. Once I get some breathing room I’ll be back to normal.”

“That does not mean the memories will no longer exist,” Frigga countered. “Pain is not erased simply because walls are erected and it is hidden from view.”

Clint smiled crookedly. Couldn’t argue with that. “It’s all in the past. Long, long in the past, and I’ve worked through it. This whole shit show with Loki—um, the trial is just dredging up some echoes.” He made a face. “The newness of the bond isn’t helping either.”

Frigga didn’t seem entirely convinced but she nodded. “The newborn bonds are always the strongest.”

There was a knock at the door and Frigga called them in. Sigyn stepped inside with a short bow. “You wished to see me, my queen?” she asked, taking one step to the side to allow the servants behind her in. She was tall—like everyone else in Asgard, it seemed—but with no muscle in the slightest. Her hair was sunlight blond and fluttery, pulled into a bun which it was trying its darnedest to escape. Clint looked at her in askance. While most of the Asgardians Clint had met looked perfectly capable of handling themselves come hell or high water or raiders and would grin gleefully while doing it, Lady Sigyn looked like she belonged in a flower field with frolicking Bambis. How did a person like that become almost-lovers with Loki?

Frigga directed the servants to a table in the next room with a nod, then stood and kissed Sigyn on the cheek in greeting. “Yes. Agent Barton wishes to have a word with you. Unfortunately, I believe I am expected in the dining hall. Agent Barton, please do not hesitate to ask should you need anything.” She held his gaze until he nodded. “Enjoy your meal.” With a final pat on Sigyn’s arm and a smile for Clint, she left, sweeping up the empty-handed servants in her wake like errant leaves, the last of which closed the door behind them. 

Not expecting to be left to his own devices so abruptly, Clint popped to his feet and scrambled for words before the silence became awkward. Sigyn smiled, stepped forward, and kissed his cheek. “Well met, Agent Barton. Congratulations on your bondings.”

“Uh….” Clint said intelligently. “Thank you?”

She quirked her head to the side. “Is it?”

“Uh…what?” 

Sigyn moved to the table, beckoning him to follow. “You surprised me. Please, take a seat. It is not often we get to dine on the royal dinner service.” She took in the full spread with relish, then flounced into the nearest seat and took his plate. “So,” she continued cheerfully, “what did you wish to speak with me about?”

Clint slid slowly into his chair. “Um…Loki.”

“Ah, I see.” Sigyn smirked as she returned a quite full plate to him. Clint eyed it with slight alarm. No way in hell was all that going to fit in his stomach. Did Asgard have etiquette rules about that? He didn’t remember anything along those lines from the party with Thor’s friends, but then that had been an informal party. This was not. “You’ve heard Loki and I are friends and wish to get my opinion.”

Clint twiddled a piece of break as he decidedly did not squirm in his seat. “…yes.” Having calmed from earlier, Nat’s bond was now cat curious and humming with schadenfreude. He sent her an emotional middle finger and dared her to act any differently. Smooth spy that she was, she probably would, damn her. She had gone undercover with Stark after all. 

Sigyn chuckled. “I’m not offended, Agent Barton. Quite please actually.” She took a bite of a meat pastry and closed her eyes in bliss. “Oh yes, I have missed this.”

Clint near pounced on the conversation opener. “You eat with the royal family often?”

“During childhood, my visits with Loki often extended through mealtimes, yes. Sadly the rules became more demanding as we reached maturity, and for the past two centuries I have been working to complete my apprenticeship with the Archivists. The Archive has its own separate compound.” Sigyn dropped back into closed-eyed rapture for a few more moments before returning her gaze to Clint. “But you wanted to ask about Loki. What did you have in mind?

Clint took a deep breath, then plunged straight in. “What’s he _actually_ like? Before his head got all fucked up.”

Sigyn laughed. “You, good sir, are asking an archivist a complicated and open-ended question. Do you stand by it or would you prefer to change your wording?”

Clint thought about it but… “Eh. There’s nothing else on my schedule and that really is what I want to know. What’s Loki like when he isn’t off his rocker?”

Sigyn’s eyes danced. “I like you.” She reached over and patted his hand. “You have my blessing.”

“Um, what for?”

“To be his shield-mate.”

Now Clint was very confused. Tony’s bond joined in on Nat’s amusement while Steve and Thor’s were once again growing concerned. “Um…I’m pretty sure I already am.”

Sigyn waved that aside as if it were irrelevant—Clint squinted at her—and took another appreciative bite. Which brought Clint’s attention back to his plate. He picked up his own little pie thing, nibbled at it, then swallowed a moan. What the hell did they put in this stuff, aphrodisiacs? Not even that gala back in Budapest had had food on this level, and that gala had been funded by _several_ organizations in the same financial league as Stark Industries. He attacked his plate with fervor. Sigyn chuckled. “You see? Now, Loki, where to start…” A fond smile played around her lips as she thought. 

After a moment she visibly gave up and starting ticking things off on her fingers. “Mischievous, incorrigible miscreant. Never seen a rule he hasn’t thought to push, if at least in his own musings. Addicted scholar—I’m fairly certain he would live in the Archive if the Archivists would let him. Possessed of a curiosity that knows no bounds and no borders. For instance, about half a millennium or so ago, there was a political dignitary visiting from Vanaheim, I forget his name now. Anyway, he had brought a pack of Nidavellir wolf-hounds as a hunting gift for the Allfather, claiming that they could track prey from a realm away if they had enough scent. Later that night Loki slipped into the kennels and presented the hounds with a headdress he had…acquired, shall we say…from one of Alfheim’s new debutantes.” She chortled into her cup. “The pandemonium that ensued from the pack swarming one of their most prestigious banquet halls didn’t calm down for weeks and relations between realms were strained for months afterward, but Loki was content to have proven that they could indeed track across realms. Eventually he set things up so that he won one of the hounds in a wager and named it Fenrir. It used to follow him _everywhere_ until some of the court made a fuss about it. I can see their point; Fenrir is the size of a warhorse and we don’t allow those into the palace, for good reason. I’m not sure where Loki sent him off to. I haven’t seen him since before Thor’s coronation. Shame really. Fenrir is a wonderful backrest.”

Clint blinked at her. Maybe he needed to revise that assessment.

Sigyn took a drink and continued on blithely. “As would follow naturally from such a curiosity, Loki will go anywhere and do near anything if it’s interesting enough. He is undoubtedly one of the best mages Asgard has seen since Hoenir Lore-Keeper retired to his studies, though you would never know it because he keeps it to himself and rarely uses magic in a capacity where people would notice. He loves horses and open air.” Sigyn smiled sadly. “Has a fierce dislike for Muspelheim which makes sense in light of recent events. He has a debilitating weakness for confections that he will drink poison before admitting. Possesses a stubborn streak the width of Asgard and can hold a grudge near indefinitely if sufficiently provoked. He is an expert at reading people and therefore finds them easy to manipulate if and when needed, which in turn has made him almost unbearingly cynical.” She huffed. “Is frustratingly self-aware in all the wrong ways: all he ever sees are his faults. He loves fiercely and with all his being once he has deemed you worthy, and a world has to die for you to be deemed otherwise. He would hang himself with his own intestines before he let harm come to his daughter. Fortunately, she is quite formidable in her own right so it is highly unlikely to ever come to that. As has been proven in the investigation, Loki will do anything to protect Asgard, her people, and the Nine Realms at large; his sense of duty is too deeply rooted for anything else, though it expresses itself in the strangest of ways sometimes.”

Sigyn leaned forward and caught Clint’s eyes. “He will _always_ listen to you and what you have to say, and he will _always_ take your decisions and wishes into account. Granted, he may still do what he planned in the first place, but he will have considered them with due respect and weight. You are his shield-mate, Agent Barton, you share a piece of your souls. No matter what he says out loud or under duress, trust that he cares for you and holds you precious.”

Clint swallowed a piece of fruit that tasted of clay, sending a hard slap down his bonds to get them to shut the fuck up. “You know a lot about him,” he said, reaching for his cup. “How come the two of you aren’t soulmates?”

Sigyn took a sip of her own drink. “I have wondered that myself. I certainly know him better than Thor does, and I would venture to guess that perhaps I know him more intricately than his own mother, as she has not been privy to many things, and there were two times where I thought I almost felt it forming, but nothing ever came of it. The only conclusion possible is that we simply do not understand each other enough.” She sighed and turned back to her plate. “Which I suppose is true enough. Pranks are fun but he could never understand that there is a time and a place for them, and he has this absurd notion that Asgard is full of arrogant imbeciles. Certain individuals may have an unfounded hatred and suspicion of him, but they are not fools.”

Clint kept his thoughts to himself on that one and instead let Sigyn work out her frustration on her food. When she had sufficiently decimated her plate, he continued with his list of questions. “How do you think the council will rule on the trial?”

Sigyn blinked at him. “Agent Barton, I may be an archivist, but I only acquired the title this last year, and even for an archivist such a conclusion is impossible to judge. We are not _volur_ , and I would dare say even Volvä Sege would be hard pressed to guess.”

“Explain to me why. Please.”

A slow smile blossomed across her face. “You truly are his shield-mate. Very well.” She started ticking off on her fingers again. “This is the first time since Asgard has had a royal family that a member has done something grievous enough to be put on trial in inter-realm criminal law. That right there means the Council must move carefully and with full deliberation as this trial will be held as a precedent more forcibly than any other. The realms on which Loki committed his crimes obscure the matter further as they are one, Jotunheim, which is Asgard’s most recent and currently most hated enemy—I would even feel secure in using the word ‘despised’—and two, Midgard, which as I’m sure you are aware by now was largely ignored by the whole of the Nine Realms until Thor’s banishment there. Historically and politically, Asgard has not particularly much cared what has been done to those realms.” Sigyn winced. “Unless it is invasion. Asgard responds very poorly to having any realm invaded. It’s a hold-over from how the Nine were formed and the fact that Asgard herself is…overprotective. Which of course leads us to the thorny thicket of the Mad Titan. That alone would have muddied the waters. Then there is the standard legal consideration of you, his shield-mate, as any verdict will affect you and the trial is not trying you. Finally, there is Loki’s newly revealed heritage. The Council may be the ones deliberating, but as Loki pointed out, the Althing does have the ability to override them if it feels strongly enough, and Asgard does not possess…kind…notions towards jotuns, as I have said.”

Clint rubbed his brow. Yeah, that’s how he thought it might be. He supposed he shouldn’t have expected anything less, being bonded to a goddamned alien prince of all things, but fuck did he hate politics. “If he was on his own council, how would Loki rule if he was mentally healthy?”

Sigyn frowned. “Why should that matter?”

Clint rolled his head in his hand towards her. “Humor me. How would he rule on himself?”

“Well…essentially as Mimir Dreki-Friend and Hoenir Lore-Keeper are renowned for doing. He would listen to the testimony of everyone who was involved, ask questions about everything, and carefully weigh their intent against the outcomes of their actions.”

“But how would he _rule?_ ” Clint pressed.

“The trial is only half completed, Agent Barton. Without all the information Loki would himself would use, I really cannot say and refuse to speculate.”

Clint snorted. “You sound like Bruce. Alright, I’ll drop the question. Got a different one for you: are you the mother of his kid?”

Sigyn actually choked on her bite and groped for her drink. Clint might have been worried if not for the fact that no one from the same race as Thor was ever going to die from something as simple as a blocked air pipe. “Blessed Norns, _no_ ,” Sigyn asserted when she could speak. “Loki and I are nothing other than good friends.”

“The queen said you were nearly sweethearts though,” Clint said. 

Sigyn plonked down her cup with a sigh. “I really wish she would let it go. It has been nearly eight hundred years.” She settled back into her chair. “Yes, Loki and I are fond of each other, but we are not lovers and we never have been, though it took a while for either of us to be fine with that. For Loki, that meant going off to wander every dangerous place in the Nine Realms he could find. It was during one of those trips where he met Hel’s mother, and five years later he returned to Asgard with a babe in his arms. Alone.” She paused, staring unseeingly at the table. “I think I grieved for Angrboða’s loss more than Loki did. I so wanted him to be happy.”

Her words summoned faces. His mother, sitting quietly by the window, just sitting. Barney, before and sometimes even after, always with that determined look in his eye. Phil, with that annoying and hypnotizing smile that meant absolutely nothing and masked so much. Nat. 

Now Nat and Tony were starting to join Steve and Thor in the Concerned Club. Even Loki stirred from his shell to reach out a cautious tendril. How the hell had he ended up with such nosy soulmates? He needed to put a stop to this, it was really getting annoying. “So how did Loki’s daughter become the queen of the dead?”

Sigyn answered the question gratefully. “I honestly do not know. The few times I have seen Hel since her appointment and managed to get time to ask, she simply smiled and winked at me. Loki, however, gets this pinched look and changes the subject. I do know that Hel takes her role very seriously, and her valkyries adore her. Agent Barton, do you mind if I ask you a question of my own?”

Clint shrugged. “’S’only fair. Shoot.”

“What is it like, your bond with Loki?”

Clint blinked at her several times as if that would shift her question into some form of sense. “Um, what? What kind of question is that?”

“I am curious how an inter-realm and inter-species bond functions. If my question was too personal, I apologize.”

“No, no, it wasn’t that,” Clint assured, despite the statement only being mildly true. “I was just confused. It’s a complicated subject and people usually don’t ask questions like that on Earth, they tend to already know. Really, Loki’s bond is no different from the rest of them.”

Sigyn tilted her head. “And what does that entail?”

“Pretty general mind-link,” Clint replied with a one-shouldered shrug, “surface connection, unrestricted empathy. It’s like having an extra sense, I guess. Emotions come through quite clearly, whether or not I care to know them. I can also manipulate it somewhat if I need to, like tug on it to get their attention.”

“Judging by his expression,” Sigyn said with a growing smirk, “you must have done so quite a bit during the Council’s questioning.”

Clint huffed, crossing his arms. “Yeah well he asked for it, being all stubborn as shit.”

Sigyn laughed softly. “Indeed. I think you will be good for him, Agent Barton. He needs more people in his life who are not only able but willing to call his bluff.”

Clint eyed her warily. “What makes you say that?”

Sigyn reached for the dessert platter. “During a training excursion to Alfheim, I spent several weeks at an acting academy, as an exercise in memorization and patience, and I learned that actors sometimes disappear behind the role they are playing. Without interference, Loki is highly susceptible to this. Occasionally who he is becomes second to obtaining the results he desires, and he forgets that he is not the mask he presents. And of course he detests being wrong, so when I point this out, he goes into a snit, like today at the Althing. So please,” she said, serving a slice of cake onto Clint’s plate, “annoy him all you can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, 2/3's lied in the last chapter's "up next". I really should stop doing that. 
> 
> Classes start tomorrow, new job started last week, and if this semester is anything like last semester (god I hope not), writing time will be scarce. I cannot wait for summer, seriously, you have no idea. 
> 
> Once again, thank you for your patience! 
> 
> Up next: Council's decision and the trial tackles _Thor_.


	13. In Which There is a Family Discussion (of Two Kinds)

All his soulmates were waiting for him when he got back.

Tony threw his arms out wide and proclaimed, “This is an intervention!”

Nat shot the man a baleful glare while Bruce just sighed. “Tony…”

“What? I’ve always wanted to say that.”

“It was always more likely to be said to you. Frankly, I’m surprised Pepper and Rhodes haven’t.”

“Honeybear did once, actually.” Tony sprawled across his couch as his bond began to swirl happily. “It was at MIT. I was on a party binge and he’d only known me for three weeks. He was so cute back then.”

“I do not understand,” Thor said. “Your shield-mate believed you required rescue from a celebration?”

“I don’t think rescue is the right word,” Steve muttered, but his bond was practically laughing. 

“Clint,” Nat said, stopping Clint in his slow shuffle towards the door. “Sit.”

Clint rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m kinda tired…”

Her bond called bullshit. 

Clint crossed his arms stubbornly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Too bad, Cupid,” Tony said. “You’ve been brushing us off for two days now. I think we deserve to know why our soulmate feels like he’s falling apart.”

“I am not falling apart,” he snapped. 

“Clint,” Nat said softly but firmly, “you’re as rattled as when you woke up.”

“You don’t have to tell us everything,” Steve assured, ignoring Tony’s vehement protest of the notion. “But you’ve been keeping a lot bottled up, and I knew from experience it doesn’t end well in the long run.” 

Clint eyed the old soldier speculatively as the bond filled with the echoes of memories. He scuffed a toe along the edge of the rug. “I’m not comfortable talking about it.”

_Tough_ , Nat’s bond said. 

“Yet. I’m not comfortable talking about it yet.”’

“Why is that?” Bruce asked. His bond, though concerned, appeared mainly curious. 

Nat narrowed her eyes. “You’ve figured out what you share.”

Clint looked away. 

“So?” Tony demanded. “What is it?”

“That’s what I’m not comfortable saying, tin-head.”

Thor’s bond crept out tentatively. “Is it because you share it with Loki?”

Clint thought about it and was surprised to find the answer was “No.” He blinked, then took a deep breath. “No, it’s not because I share it with Loki, of all people. Nat, Phil didn’t even really know. Well,” he amended, “maybe he did, seeing as how he was there for half of it, but I never told him about it.”

Nat’s bond mulled over that silently. The rest of his soulmates weren’t quite ready to let it go. 

“Look,” he said with a sigh, “if I tell you all about where I was tonight, will you let me go to bed?”

Steve nodded, physically gagging Tony. Who responded by thoroughly licking his hand. Steve wiped it on the couch, bond laced with disgust, shooting Tony a glare which the engineer beamed at. 

Clint huffed at them and plopped down on to the couch next to Nat, who fit herself snuggly against him. “I had dinner with Sigyn,” he announced. 

Thor perked up. “Sigyn Nönnudottir? She is a good friend of Loki’s,” he explained to the rest of them. “May I inquire why?”

“It was the whole point of this conversation. I wanted to know what Loki was like, before all this.” Clint waved his hand at the room at large. “And no offense, big guy, but I don’t really trust you for that information.”

Thor winced but nodded, bond curling sadly. “Understandable, my friend.”

“So what did you learn?” Bruce asked.

“That Loki’s a damn powerful mage and is a total bookworm and embodies the entire concept of curiosity killed the cat.”

“I am unfamiliar with that phrase,” Thor said.

“It’s an Earth saying,” Steve explained. “‘Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back.’ Growing up my neighbor had a cat, a little spotted calico, and she would stick her nose into anything that wasn’t locked down. She would even nudge off the brick we put on the trash can lid so she could get inside. Once I saw her open a cupboard. Sounds like Loki was much the same?”

“That does describe my brother quite well,” Thor agreed with a nod, “particularly in his younger days, when he would forgo sleep for days at a time, until either our mother or Lady Eir would drag him back to his bed.”

Tony’s bond percolated oddly.

“Why did you want to know that?” Nat asked. 

“I had to confirm a theory.” His own exhaustion catching up with him—he hadn’t been lying by much, earlier—Clint dumped his head onto Nat’s shoulder with a yawn. “He reminds me of you.”

“How so?”

“Small inner circle he would raise hell for.”

Her bond hummed thoughtfully.

Steve leaned his elbows on his knees, fingers loosely laced. “Do you have an idea of what you want to have happen?”

Clint squinted at him.

“He’s an inter-realm war criminal, Clint. Even if Asgard doesn’t execute him, he’s going to be in prison on a completely different planet.”

Clint shrugged his free shoulder. “Dunno. Cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.”

“As his shield-mate,” Thor said, “you do have the right to demand certain concessions on his sentence.”

Bruce’s bond skipped in surprise. “You’re joking.”

Thor shook his head. “They are shield-mates, so any verdict, particularly execution, will affect Agent Barton, even more so as their bond is new and still settling.”

“Sigyn said something similar,” Clint murmured. 

“I imagine Sigyn would have researched much when the Althing was called,” Thor said with a small smile, bond going a little fuzzy with warmth. “There is precedent. Of course, the accused was never a member of the royal family before, and the crimes were not so…drastic, but there is precedent. If you need it, the Council will take your demands into account. We are well aware of the consequences of a damaged soulbond, and it would be the height of cruelty to punish you for the actions of another.”

“Does Earth do that?” Bruce asked. 

Tony waffled his hand back and forth. “Depends on the crime, where it was committed, and the age of the bond. For states and countries that have the death penalty, the government is usually legally obligated to provide medical support to the surviving soulmate, or various visitation rights if the innocent soulmate lives far away.”

“How do you know that?” Steve asked.

“I’ve been arrested in enough states and countries that Rhodey and Pepper have looked into it.”

“Of course you have,” Steve muttered. 

 

\-------------------

 

The galleries seemed more restless than usual, fidgety rustlings filling the open space as the judges took their seats and Loki was once again chained to the truth spell, but they settled immediately when Forseti stood and rapped his staff on the floor. 

“After much deliberation, the Council has come to the decision that the plea of magical coercion does apply to the invasion of Midgard. We the Council are of the mind that Loki’s actions on Midgard after his arrival, while reprehensible, were compelled through magical means and thus could not have been avoided. This, however, does not apply to the murder of the Midgardian Coulson, as it was premediated and orchestrated to undermine the objective of said magical coercion.” Clint blinked. Frankly, he hadn’t expected immortal space Vikings to care about what had happened to Phil. Nat and Tony’s bonds were also pleasantly surprised. Thor’s was in equal parts surprised and saddened at their responses, particularly if his furtive glances were anything to go by. “But as this action was taken in the interest of avoiding further bloodshed,” Forseti continued, “the Council has voted to delay its final decision regarding it until the events preceding the invasion of Midgard have been investigated, in the hopes of placing it within a larger context. Does the Althing have any objections?” 

There were some mutterings, but no one wanted to dare the wrath of Lady Eir, who appeared quite happy to help whoever spoke up into a broken arm. 

Forseti nodded at the galleries. “Then the Council will move its investigation to the events preceding the invasion of Midgard.” Forseti sat down and nodded for Mimir to take the floor.

Mimir drummed his fingers on his armrest, staring Loki down. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we, _hrafn?_ Did you show the jotnar into the Vault?”

Loki cocked his head. “No.”

Uneasy muttering arose when the light didn’t change beneath his feet. Clint examined the bond. It was boredly mischievous, as if merely performing habit. 

“No,” Loki continued. “I did not show them into the Vault. I merely showed a select few a hidden path from Jotunheim to Asgard, and let them decide the rest.”

“So it was you!” a gallery member shouted, appearing greatly relieved. 

“I knew it,” another muttered crossly. “He was never trustworthy, always up to something.”

“But, I don’t understand,” a third said. _“Why?_ Such a small force, you knew they couldn’t accomplish much.”

“True,” a man across the auditorium responded. “The Destroyer required the might of Thor to be stopped. What was the point of that trick?”

“Did it need a point?” an aristocrat demanded. Loki’s bond was strangely amused by the man, who if he could would probably have been gouging Loki’s eyeballs out with a rusty spoon. “Loki plays tricks just because he can.”

“Hardly,” Sigyn snorted from her seat in the next gallery over. Loki scowled at her. “The tricks he pulled on you were always after you’d been bothering the wait staff. How could you not notice that? It was fairly obvious to half the court.”

“Be that as it may,” a woman interjected before the aristocrat could respond, “Master Bjorn has a point. Why did you let them in, Loki? And at such coincident timing? Should we take it as evidence of true hate for Thor?”

“It was because he was not ready,” Loki snapped. Then he shrugged. “And as I cannot lie here, there might have been a wish to ruin his day. He was so eager to take something he didn’t deserve or live up to.”

Thor’s friends bristled in their seats, but Thor waved them back. “He speaks nothing but the truth.”

Loki’s bond froze in shock. Literally. Clint received nothing from it for three seconds. 

“Just because the light has not gone out does not mean it is the true truth,” Fandral said not unkindly. 

Thor shook his head. “My brother speaks only as it is, Fandral. I was brash. All I could think of was striking back at Jotunheim for their perceived insult, and I did not even consider the ramifications of such an action. Those are not the actions of a king.”

Hoenir and Mimir stared at Thor. “What brought about this understanding?” Hoenir asked. 

Thor smiled sadly, bond pondering and slow but strong. “I have been in many battles, Lore-Keeper, but they were just that. Battles. The invasion of Midgard was war. There were mainly noncombatants running through the streets, mothers with children, storekeepers, all slaughtered by the Chitauri or buried beneath rubble as buildings collapsed. My vision of the world had already been shaken by Loki’s words and actions on the Bifrost, and it was no longer such a leap to see those streets as Asgard’s, those families as Aesir.”

Even Frigga looked shocked and pleased at his words. 

“Perhaps there is hope for you yet, boy,” Mimir said thoughtfully. “Explain your reasoning on heading to Jotunheim.”

Thor’s bond was now deeply uncomfortable. He shrugged. “I was angry. I…will not deny that I was upset that I had not been crowned, nor that I was working out frustrations on the frost giants, but my true purpose in venturing to Jotunheim was as I had said in the vault during our investigation.”

“And what was that?” Hoenir asked.

“Find out why they broke in, and to teach them a lesson so that they wouldn’t attempt to do so again.” 

“Because having the bigger stick always works,” Tony muttered, bond twisting darkly. 

Thor winced. “I never said I was wise. Laufey was correct. I felt myself invincible and in the right, and I wanted to prove it.” Loki was staring over his shoulder at Thor like he’d never seen him before in all his very long life, and his bond kept twisting and turning as if trying to find the zipper. Thor’s bond acquired gloomy overtones, and he took a deep breath. “In the spirit of this trial, Council, I must disclose that my beliefs were reinforced by Loki’s words.” _And there it is,_ Loki’s bond seemed to say. 

“Explain,” Mimir growled, fingers once again drumming. 

“I was angry and frustrated,” Thor said. “In trying to calm me, Loki said that he thought I was right. I have long trusted my brother’s counsel, as though he is wont to play tricks, he is a far better strategist than I and has rarely led me wrong on those accounts.” And the befuddlement was back. It was almost like watching an emotional tennis match. “So I decided to go to Jotunheim.”

“Even though it was forbidden?” Hoenir pushed. Thor just shrugged helplessly. 

Lady Eir was near glaring at Loki. “Loki, I would never have taken you for a warmonger. Explain your intentions.”

“My intention had nothing to do with war, I assure you,” Loki said. “I merely aimed to showcase Thor’s recklessness, nothing more. We were never supposed to actually _get_ to Jotunheim. As Hoenir said, travel to Jotunheim was expressly forbidden, and Heimdall never trusted me once I learned to hide myself from his gaze—he’s too used to knowing for that not to irk him. I even made sure that I would be the one to speak to him on the bridge, but his confounded hatred for not knowing was apparently more powerful than his distrust of me, and he let them through anyway. Even knowing that the little jaunt might cost Asgard her crown prince. So of course now I had to go along to keep any of the fools from dying. Which, may I point out, would have happened despite my best efforts had I not informed a guardsmen of our destination.”

Sif near hissed from her seat, “You lying, conniving—!”

Loki’s bond rolled its emotional eyes. “Do try not to be more idiotic than usual, Sif. We were about to be massacred.”

“We would have died gloriously! It would have been a great honor!”

“It would have been utterly stupid.”

“Thor was banished instead,” she countered. “And all because of your meddling.”

“No, it was not,” Thor ground out. His bond was starting to feel a bit like Bruce’s before he hulked out. “Sif, you cannot pass my actions onto my brother. Loki did not cause my father to banish me. I did that on my own. Loki didn’t even say anything after we got back.”

“My king,” Forseti said, turning to the royal box, “I would like to hear your version of these events.”

Odin waved a hand. “It is no different than my sons have recounted.” 

“And why did you banish Thor?” Hoenir asked. 

“Because,” Odin said, “I had spent a century beating the jotnar off Midgard and back to Jotunheim, and before that the war with the dark elves wreaked havoc across the realms. I was not about to let childish actions over a small grievance already dealt with plunge us into war once again. Thor had not only proved himself not ready for the throne, but unworthy of leadership.”

Thor winced, but his bond agreed, though it grieved a little. 

“Which is what Loki was aiming for, he said so himself,” Sif said. 

Foresti looked at Loki. “Was Thor’s banishment your intent?”

Loki’s bond shifted. “No.” The galleries murmured when the light didn’t go out. 

“But you were happy about it,” Sif maintained.

A convoluted snarl erupted out of his bond. It twisted and roiled, almost at odds with itself. Love ran head on into hate, and they duked it out for a bit while resentment and regret grew in their wake. 

_—“Jesus fucking Christ, Clint, don’t you have any fucking brains in that head of yours at all?” Barney raged, smashing their plastic cups against the wall. “I’ve worked my fucking ass off for fucking years just to feed you, and you turn down an easy grand because you_ felt bad?”

_Clint couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Surely he hadn’t heard right? His left ear had never quite worked right after his tenth birthday. “He was stealing from the circus, Barney!”_

_“What the fuck do you think we’re doing? Do you think all those games out there aren’t rigged? Huh? Do you, Clint? Or that the popcorn isn’t overcharged and the bag isn’t filled only three quarters? Gee, it must be nice, living in such a fucking rosy world. Well, you can count me right the fuck out.”_

_Clint stared. “What?”_

_“I’m done, Clint. I’m fucking done. You can fucking take care of yourself.” And Barney turned his back and left.—_

Loki twisted to look at him over his shoulder, inner conflict snuffed out by surprise. Clint grimaced at him but nodded. Yeah, he got it. Brothers were complicated. 

Nat leaned into his shoulder. “It’s fine, Nat,” he sighed. 

“I know.” 

Loki was still staring at him near incredulously. Clint gave him the unimpressed teenage-patented stare. Loki huffed and turned forward, but his bond was a tinge amused. 

Mimir was watching them thoughtfully, but Hoenir had his attention elsewhere. “Allfather, why Midgard, of all realms?

“Certainly not because he thought the Midgardians would teach Thor humility,” Loki drawled. “Odin hardly has the time of day for them himself. He chose Midgard out of spite because no one journeys there anymore. It’s a quaint, secluded realm where Thor would have no friends, no means of escape, and suffer all the ailments that come of being of the earth.”

“Should we take offense at that?” Tony wondered aloud. “I think we should. I think I’m offended.”

Odin’s eye glittered. “Loki, you are twisting my intentions.”

“Oh am I? I rather think I’m simply being more explicit. You do so love your obfuscations, Allfather. You couldn’t even tell me straight why you took me.”

“I would like to hear that as well,” Mimir said, skewering Odin with a glare.

“Puppet king,” Loki explained. “Because we all know that would have worked out so well. The frost giants would have welcomed the second prince of Asgard with open arms, and that’s even before we consider my sparkling personality.”

“I said no such thing,” Odin interrupted.

“Of course you did. ‘Bring about an alliance and peace through me,’ who you’ve raised all my life to look up to you, it couldn’t mean anything else!”

“I only said that because you would accept nothing else!” Odin roared, startling the entire auditorium. Thor actually flinched a little. “I began to tell you the truth and you dismissed it.”’

“And what was that?” Loki sneered.

“That you were an innocent child.”

“A little more than that, please, Odin,” Hoenir said. 

“I do not see why.”

“Because this is trial, Odin Allfather, and not even you are above the Althing. You will explain your reasoning.”

“Or I’ll pry it from your lips,” Mimir added.

Odin shot the wizard a look that reminded Clint so much of Fury, he couldn’t help but chuckle. Nat’s bond agreed, though she had much better decorum about it. This is why she went undercover at galas and he squatted on the roof of the next building. Though he did have enough sense to chuckle quietly. Diplomatic immunity really only went so far in practice. 

“Odin,” Frigga said. 

He waited one moment more before saying steely, “The battle had been over not an hour when I heard a baby crying. I followed the sound to the temple and found it abandoned, perhaps because it was small for a giant’s offspring, I do not know and I do not care, then or now. It was an innocent child, a new life, struggling in the midst of destruction and death and suffering.” His face took on a particularly mulish expression. “So I brought it home.”

“Oh please,” Loki scoffed. “You cannot expect me to believe such sentimentality.”

“And you claim to be so insightful,” Odin mocked. “You say Heimdall dislikes not knowing, but you belong to the same camp. You also always believe the worse, to the exclusion of the light. I do not know where you acquired such vision, you were such a happy child.”

“When I was a _child_. Then I grew up and finally paid attention to the rest of the world. So sorry I couldn’t be oblivious like Thor.”

“I did not want a second Thor!” Odin shouted. “I had an heir, I did not need another. You were _supposed_ to be the light in the darkness! The guiding light that kept him on the true path.”

Loki stared at him. His bond kept stuttering in the back of Clint’s mind, like a car that had stopped abruptly and now couldn’t be restarted. None of the galleries dared to comment, and the judges seemed momentarily stunned. Even Mimir was giving Odin the hairy eyeball. 

Eventually Loki said, “You can’t mean that.”

“You see, this is why I did not tell you,” Odin grumped. “You simply refuse to believe that anyone could have good intentions.”

“Anyone but _you_ ,” Loki stressed. “A century old child can have good intentions. Sigyn always has good intentions. Thor believes he has good intentions. You are an old jaded king. Your intentions are for what you believe to be the good of Asgard. And I suppose your reasons for withholding the truth are just as magnanimous.”

“I never told you because it wasn’t important.”

“You thought my _race_ wasn’t _important?”_

“You are my son. That is all that matters.”

“To coin a lovely Midgardian phrase—bullshit.”

“If you cannot accept Odin’s,” Frigga said, “perhaps you can accept mine.” She rose from her seat, releasing Clint’s hand with a warm pat, and walked up to Loki. She looked him square in the eye and stepped onto the truth spell. “I had a knowing. I knew who and what you were long before Odin ever brought you to my house. I freely admit, I did not love you then. I did not know you. However, that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t care for you any less than my own blood kin. I would do the same for any infant.” Frigga smoothed her hand down Loki’s cheek, whose bond was caught between fragile hope and wariness. “But by the time you had been under my care for a year, you had stolen my heart. My little mischief spirit who loved to laugh. I never told you the truth because I live at court, and I heard the grumblings after the war with Jotunheim, and I had no wish to bring all that malcontent upon your innocent head. And I never told you the truth when you were older because I know Asgard, and you were already atypical.” She smiled softly and took her hand back. “I realize now that was more me clinging to my image of you than what you deserved, and you deserved to know the truth. I am sorry.”

Loki’s gaze jerked to the floor, but the light hadn’t changed an iota from when Frigga had begun speaking. His bond dug at Clint’s heart. He stared at his alien soulmate, and felt a creeping sensation that he might be doomed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple of things.
> 
> First, I had hoped to have done way more writing this summer, but then life decided to throw me a curve ball in early June and instead I've been emotionally scrambling for a few months and only worked on this intermittently. I wanted to get this chapter out before the semester started up, so I personally don't think it's up to the same standards as the rest of the chapters, so I feel a need to apologize if it comes across as such. I may edit/revise at some point. I can't really say when the next update will happen, except that it will. Eventually. We are so close to wrapping this one up. Seriously, only like three or four chapters left. 
> 
> Second, I dunno if this is part of popular head canon or not, but I took direct inspiration for Loki's reasoning about traveling to Jotunheim from PeaceHeather's "Fate's Guardian" (which I would link to if I knew how to do that), supported by many rewatchings of that scene. 
> 
> Third, I've mentioned it before in an End Note somewhere, but my headcanon for Odin is complicated and not very similar to many others I've read (though Limmet's "Poetic Justice" comes to mind as a possible counter-example). I'm hoping that came across instead of just a rosy version of "everyone means well but miscommunicates". I'm happy to discuss it with you in the comments if you're curious. 
> 
> Thanks to all of you for your patience and many kudos and comments. They light up my day. Thank you also for slogging through this end note; I realize it's a long one.


	14. In Which Loki Describes Kingship (and Politics)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously (because yeah, it's been a while):
> 
>  
> 
> _Loki’s gaze jerked to the floor, but the light hadn’t changed an iota from when Frigga had begun speaking. His bond dug at Clint’s heart. He stared at his alien soulmate, and felt a creeping sensation that he might be doomed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUYS GUYS GUYS
> 
> I passed my first set of comprehensive exams!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So not only are my eating habits getting healthier and more regular, but I actually have time and energy to write! BGAH I'M SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW!

Might be, he chastised himself. _Might_ be. He was his own agent now, he could make his own damn choices. Regardless of the evidence sitting in a mute lump in the back of his mind like a fat, contrary cat. Just because he happened to share something with Loki, even if it was something that fundamental, did _not_ mean that he had to welcome him like a long-lost friend or family or…or soulmate. Earth’s history had a plethora of ready role models and examples of that. 

Ah shit. His own tug of war was making Loki’s bond writhe itself into knots. Frigga did not deserve that. Clint took a deep breath, letting it out as slowly as possible. Nat leaned against his side. Her bond hummed soothingly in the background, quiet and steady. Loki shot him an indecipherable glance. Clint sent back an awkward emotional shrug. Loki huffed. As the auditorium waited silently, his bond smoothed into something still confused and vulnerable, and, finally, he nodded cautiously at Frigga. She ran her hand down his cheek once more with a complicated, melancholy smile, and touched their foreheads together briefly before returning to her seat. Clint couldn’t help but notice that her hands trembled just slightly in her lap. Without even thinking, he reached over and took one into his. The smile she gifted him with made his chest do funny, half-remembered things and he hurriedly turned back to the stage-floor. God, this family was going to be the death of him.

“I believe it to be prudent to continue on,” Hoenir said into the silence.

“I concur,” a gallery member replied. “I for one would like to know how a frost giant became Regent during the Allfather’s latest Odinsleep.”

Frigga scoffed at that loudly. “Because he was _and still is_ my son. Giving Loki Gungnir was entirely within Asgard’s standard legal code.”

“But wouldn’t you have been a better choice, my Queen?” another asked. “You have greater experience with ruling.”

Mimir was the one to scoff this time. “You were all perfectly happy to crown Thor king not a year ago, and he very rarely took part in any Council or Althing proceedings.” 

Thor winced a little, bond chagrined. Tony patted his arm. “S’okay, Point Break. I don’t attend board meetings either.”

“Not the point, Tony,” Steve murmured. 

“Odin needed me to help stabilize his sleep,” Frigga added, casting a sharp glance at her husband, “since he had been putting it off for so long. I could not stabilize him and rule, and Thor was banished. What precisely would you have wished me to do?”

Clint blinked as the emotions skittering along Loki’s bond finally coalesced into something understandable. “You didn’t want it.”

Loki tensed but an aristocrat from the second tier broke in before he could respond. “That’s impossible. Loki has long shown himself envious of Thor. Why wouldn’t he wish to usurp the Prince’s rightful place? Are you sure you know how to read a bond correctly, mortal?”

“Are you sure you know anything of politics, Lord Geir?” Loki snapped. “Ah, yes, I forgot, you’re merely a third son, how silly of me. Let me explain a king’s duties. They consist of sitting prettily on his throne and listening to his court, his citizenry, and assorted foreign dignitaries argue and prattle at him, and guarding his every word so that no fragile diplomatic sensitivities are offended. If he is particularly good at this last, he is able to continue sitting prettily on his throne having people shout at him. If he is not, he’ll soon find himself on a battlefield and no citizenry, economy, or crops worth protecting. While I’m sure we are all aware that I do not shy from verbal fencing, I do not have the patience nor the desire to subject myself to such tedious monotony. _Particularly_ when subjects are disinclined to listen to my orders.”

“Probably because they were ill-advised,” the same aristocrat spat. 

“Oh really? Enforcing the Allfather’s previous rulings is ill-advised? So the Warriors Three and the Venerable Lady Sif were _well_ -advised in going to retrieve Thor from the Allfather’s banishment? Is that truly the move you wish to make, Lord Geir? You never were very skilled at tafl.”

“Scathingly put, as always,” Mimir commented. “Would those four mentioned care to explain themselves?”

Fandral coughed. “Well…” He fidgeted under Mimir’s stare. “You see, Dreki-Friend, we thought it…prudent…to…”

“Thor’s banishment was unjust,” Sif said. “We had planned to speak with the Allfather on the matter, but he was in the Odinsleep, and Queen Frigga was unavailable. Loki refused our request so we went to retrieve him ourselves.”

“Against the order of your King and your Regent?” Forseti demanded.

“Yes.”

Thor’s bond all but face-palmed. 

Forseti glowered at her. “You, Lady Sif, will need an outstanding reason for your actions if you wish to avoid the consequences. That goes for the Warriors Three as well.”

“When we were on Jotunheim,” Hogun offered, “Laufey told us that the House of Odin was full of traitors.”

“Depends on what you mean by traitor,” Loki mused lightly, quirking his head to the side. “Words are such fickle things, after all. Nearly everyone has betrayed someone else in one fashion or another. It’s really not that rare a happenstance.”

“Jaded fellow, isn’t he?” Tony muttered. 

“Frankly,” Loki continued, “I’m surprised you believed the words of a frost giant.”

“It was hard not to when you changed tune so abruptly,” Sif snapped. “You were all sympathy after the coronation but when Thor was banished, you immediately started spouting about how dangerous and reckless he was.”

“Wasn’t he?” Loki snarled. “Laufey had just declared war on Asgard because of his thoughtless actions. How blind are you?”

“Oh what, and you sending the Destroyer after us wasn’t?” Sif shot back. “If that doesn’t prove you unfit for the throne, then I don’t know what does.”

“I too am curious about your reasoning, Loki,” Lady Eir said. “Explain it.”

“They had gone against my order as Regent and Odin’s as Allfather, and thus required punishment under the full weight of the law if Asgard wished to avoid similar uprisings. The Warriors Three and Lady Sif can be considered formidable warriors. They would have to be not to have died on any of the harebrained adventures Thor has gone on. The number of _einherjar_ required to retrieve them would have been unwieldly, impractical, and likely seen as an unprovoked invasion by the Midgardian authorities.”

Lady Eir quirked a brow. “So you sent the most powerful autonomous weapon available? The one we utilize to guard our most valuable and volatile treasures? Was that not an overreaction? The mortals of that town were completely helpless against it.”

“Asgard has never cared about the inhabitants of Midgard but who ultimately has possession of the realm. Do not try to pin your own failings on me.”

Clint couldn’t help but jerk on the bond. Loki glared at him and he glared right back. What the fuck was he doing? You do not antagonize people who are out for your fucking blood!

They argued over the bond for a moment or two before Loki growled lowly and turned back to face the judges, gritting out, “I may not have been as precise in my wording as the Destroyer requires as I may have been a touch angry. And I was watching from Hliðskjálf. Thor made a very passionate plea for those innocent Midgardians, even going to so far as to lay down his life without fighting for it. And you know what?” he asked the galleries, throwing a challenging glower around, “I would have left it at that. I would have fucking left it at that but the imbecile _still_ had not learned. His eyes might have been opened but not far enough.”

“Hmm,” Hoenir hummed. “I’d wondered if that was it.”

“Precisely,” Loki said with exacting enunciation. “‘Whatever I have done to wrong you, whatever I have done to lead you to this, I am truly sorry.’ To repeat my earlier words—bullshit. If you cannot say what you have done wrong, then you cannot truly be remorseful and there is nothing to stop you from doing it again because _you do not understand._ That, and the fact that Thor once again assumed that it was all about him. That he was the reason I had sent the Destroyer, that he was the reason everything was falling to pieces.” Loki paused for a moment. “Not that that isn’t a large part of it, but it is not his fault that Odin is a lying bastard. Oh do be quiet,” he told the muttering galleries. “Like you are not angry with your king for smuggling a frost giant into the royal house under your noses.”

“And what precisely were you planning to do if Thor had died?” Mimir asked curiously.

Loki laughed deliriously. “Of course. Because that was so likely to happen. Odin was never going to allow his golden boy to die no matter how mad he was at him. As evidenced by how little he had to do to prove himself ‘worthy.’”

“Really?” Mimir asked. “You do not consider his mortal body dying to be an act of worthiness?”

Loki scowled at the old wizard. “Don’t try to act ignorant, Mimir. You know just as well as I do that Thor has always been willing to die in battle. Nor is him protecting his friends anything new. Please. You are all so damn willing to die.”

Clint yanked on the bond again, just to make sure Loki’s hypocrisy was perfectly clear. Loki ignored him. 

“Loki,” Sege interjected, cutting off Mimir’s no doubt blistering reply. Her hands were once again busy in her lap and her gaze wandered around the far ceiling of the auditorium. “I am curious about your slaying of Laufey. Would you explain your reasoning?”

Outwardly, Loki shrugged. Inwardly, his bond was going nuts. So many emotions were flying about that Clint barely had time to mark their passing, let alone identify them. And that wasn’t even counting the dark, lumbering things roiling underneath the maelstrom. “Laufey had promised Odin war. It seemed logical at the time to simply remove him from the weave.”

“Really?” Mimir repeated, this time with more derision. “Since when have you resorted to murder, _hrafn_?”

“Spare me. The history of the Nine Realms is riddled with all sorts of assassinations and ‘hunting accidents.’”

“But what was the point of tricking him into coming to Asgard?” Hoenir mused. “If your intent was simply to avoid war, there were other avenues open to you. If you truly only wanted to kill him, you could have simply done it on Jotunheim. Why let him almost kill the Allfather?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “If you really cannot accept the political motivation, fine. It was so I could be seen thwarting an assassination attempt.”

Hoenir sighed. “You are doing it again, Loki.”

“Doing what?” Loki asked innocently.

Hoenir glared. “If you continue along this route, I will have you recite the pertinent laws. We both know you have the codex memorized in its entirety. Now give me your damned reasons.”

Loki’s bond would have happily eviscerated the old wizard. 

Thor’s tiptoed out. “Lore-Keeper…I may be able to answer, if Loki is unable.” The line of Loki’s shoulders tensed until it looked almost brittle. “He detailed his plans to me at the Bifrost when we fought.”

“I did not ask you,” Hoenir snapped, eyes still trained on Loki. 

Tony clasped Thor’s shoulder and whispered, “Yeah, not really your smartest move, Point Break. We know you want to help, but there are times you just can’t.”

Clint rubbed his forehead. Loki’s bond was whipping about so fast, it was physically making his head hurt. Whatever the reason was, Loki really didn’t want to say it. If this was what it felt like to have a trickster scheming in his head, Clint really didn’t want both him _and_ Tony doing it. Being hit by tanks would feel better. 

Or he could just block it. 

He considered that for a moment, then dismissed the idea with a sigh. He needed to know Loki’s plan too much to just voluntarily give up information. 

The bond spun down as it settled on an answer. _“Fine_. It was a delusional and nonsensical attempt to prove myself worthy of Asgard’s throne.”

For the first time, the light under his feet went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, I know, but there was really no good place to break the chapter off (the previous place I picked was even worse) and it has been roughly seven months (holy shit) since the last update. Thankfully, the next one will be MUCH sooner than that.


	15. In Which the Truth Comes Out (and Is Hotly Debated)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would have posted this earlier, but my computer froze, nearly died, and then decided to update. I was so afraid I'd lost this chapter, you have no idea...

Loki looked down, bond flickering in surprise, then swore. At length. When he finally ran out of things to say, his head slumped forward, fury drowned under the same dark exhaustion as before as it swept down the bond like the engulfing tide.

“I take it,” Mimir said with a touch of black humor, “that that statement is an excellent example of the current state of your _munr_ and _hugr_ , given the spell’s acceptance of your previous reasoning for not wanting the throne?”

 _“Yes,”_ Loki bit out. The light flicked back on.

Hoenir drummed his fingers on the armrest. “Which are the points of contention?”

“If I knew that, do you think I would have said what I did?”

“Would you have?” Hoenir asked.

Loki gritted his teeth. “No. I will not simply roll over, but I see no reason to lie at this time. It serves no purpose.”

Many gallery members didn’t know what to make of the light staying on through that statement. 

Clint disentangled himself from Frigga’s hand, stood, and crossed the stage-floor to stand in Loki’s line of sight but where the judges still had a clear view. He folded his arms with a sharp grin that made Loki’s bond immediately distrusting. “I have an idea. Let’s play a little Earth game called Simon Says. Rules are simple, just repeat whatever I say after ‘Simon says’.”

“Is this evidence of Midgardians’ lacking intelligence?” Loki poked. 

“It’s a children’s game, actually. I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

They stared at each other for a while.

Eventually, Loki huffed a sigh and nodded, bond supremely suspicious but resigned. 

Clint grinned cheekily. “Good. Simon says, I have one daughter.”

“Seriously, Barton?”

“Not up to a children’s game, hotshot?”

Loki glowered, but he dutifully parroted the phrase. The light stayed on.

“See, it’s not that difficult. Simon says, my favorite color is red.”

The light went out as Loki repeated the phrase with an overly dramatic eye roll. 

“Simon says, when I fixate on something, I can forget to sleep.”

The light came back. 

“Simon says, letting Laufey almost kill the Allfather was an attempt to prove myself worthy.”

Loki scowled but repeated the statement. The light stayed on. So the main point of Loki’s declaration was truthful…Clint mulled the implications of that over. Whatever feedback traveled through the bond had Loki narrow his eyes at him, both daring him to say anything and threatening dire retribution if he did. His bond was starting to churn again at the very thought. Clint stowed that away for later. 

“Simon says, letting Laufey almost kill the Allfather was delusional.”

Loki looked at him for a long moment, bond laced with suspicion, before repeating the phrase. The light went out. Loki blinked at it. 

“Simon says, letting Laufey almost kill the Allfather was nonsensical.”

Loki repeated the statement absently, still watching the light. It stayed out.

“Thought so,” Clint said smugly. Loki flicked his gaze up at him and Clint answered the unspoken question. “You were very passionate at the SHIELD base before it blew. As that would have been when your mind was Kentucky fried, it makes sense that the sentiment would have stuck around the longest.” 

Loki’s bond percolated on that. “That would seem logical.”

“Now to double check: Simon says, I never wanted the throne.”

“I never wanted the throne,” Loki enunciated. 

The light agreed he did not. 

Clint looked at the judges. “Good?”

Hoenir nodded. “Interesting method, but yes, I do believe that clarifies the matter.”

“Okay then.” Clint looked back at Loki, making his bond twitch again, before returning to his seat and letting Frigga reclaim his hand. There would be time after. Let Loki stew for a bit. 

“We will move on then,” Forseti said. “Loki, did you consider the implications of letting King Laufey into Asgard?”

“You’ll need to be more precise,” Loki said, “as I believe it is well established that I had implications in mind.”

“While you were busy with King Laufey, the other jotnar could have broken into the Vault or wrecked havoc in the castle or city. Since Heimdall was incapacitated, they could have even opened the Bifrost to begin the war that King Laufey had promised. Did you consider those possibilities?”

A stain spread over Loki’s bond, making Clint’s fingers twitch against Frigga’s. “No, I did not. And I believe from his actions, it is obvious Laufey did not either, or he would have planned accordingly.”

Forseti’s face remained impassive as he nodded. “Explain your reasoning for attempting to destroy Jotunheim with the Bifrost.”

“What is there to explain? Jotunheim was slowly dying without the Casket, and no one in Asgard was in any hurry to rectify that. I was merely bestowing the mercy of a quick death.”

“You would have killed an entire race for so little reason?” a gallery member asked, sounding scandalized. “How does that make you any different from the Mad Titan?”

Loki looked up at the man with a raised brow. “How are you all any different from the Mad Titan? Asgard decimated the Dark Elves to the brink of extinction and no one besides a few Archivists are particularly upset about that. Why should frost giants, the begins at the butt of every joke and the monster of every tale, instead ignite your compassion, if indeed you have any?”

“An excellent question,” Hoenir said. “Thor, why did you decide the Bifrost was an acceptable price to pay in exchange for saving Jotunheim? You would not have cared before your coronation.”

Thor rose to his feet slowly, pulling his thoughts together. “When the Destroyer landed on Midgard, it…the people of that small town were not warriors, Lore-Keeper. Much like with the Chitauri, it was slaughter, with no honor or glory. Unleashing the might of the Bifrost on Jotunheim was similar. They had no way to combat it.”

“So the killing of an entire race is fine so long as they are given a fighting chance?” Mimir queried. 

Thor shook his head. “No, there is never a circumstance where the extinction of a race is justified.”

“Interesting,” Hoenir hummed. “You would place the jotnar at the same level as any race in the Nine Realms then?”

Thor thought about it for a moment, his bond turning the concept over as if finding it strange. “It is…difficult, Lore-Keeper. I believed what I have for a long time. But, I also believed mortals to be of littler interest for just as long. Mortals have such short lives, they have not our strength, and their realm is not as advanced.” He shrugged. “Mortals were boring. I mean no offense,” he added hastily to his soulmates, who, Clint judged from the bonds and his own reaction, were mainly amused. Tony might be plotting petty revenge, but they were still mostly just amused. “Lady Jane was the first to show me differently. She was not what I expected from a mortal,” he said with a smile. His bond was so sunny it made Clint want to gag just on principle. This would require teasing at a later date. “She is attempting to understand the workings of the Bifrost and possibly create her own. As far as I am aware, and I know my studies are lacking in this respect, but as far as I am aware, no other realm has bothered to do this, and I did not expect it from lowly Midgard. It....made me wonder.”

Loki scoffed. “You were able to put aside centuries of hate and distrust because one mortal fluttered her lashes at you. Please.”

Thor’s bond rattled, but he merely took a deep breath. “No, Loki, it was Laufey actually. Jane certainly helped, yes. Seeing my beliefs about mortals so negated made me remember how Laufey had tried to send us away. He only declared war after I attacked first. I had little to do on Midgard but think on that, and what else my actions may have caused.”

“I don’t believe you.”’

“And why not?” Thor demanded. 

“Because that is too _easy_ ,” Loki snapped, twisting in his chains to shout at Thor more directly. “Three days is not enough to change someone so drastically, particularly not someone as pigheaded as you!”

“It was apparently enough for you,” Thor muttered petulantly.

Loki laughed. “Oh no, I didn’t _change_ , I merely stopped masking. There was now an explanation for why I was never accepted, why I was so different. Why bother trying to be something I’m not? It’s just exhausting and got me nowhere for a thousand years.”

“Is that why you let go on the bridge?” Mimir asked. 

Loki twisted back to face the wizard. “Odin had just rejected everything I was trying to do.” He huffed, and his bond felt like it was carrying the weight of all of Asgard. “And I was so very tired of conforming without appreciation, of unreachable expectations. What was the point of going through all that effort for no reward. It was simply easier to let go.”

Tony and Bruce’s bonds darkened into murky pits. Steve, who was sitting between the two, kept whipping his head from one to the other, bond bewildered and unsure how to proceed. Clint had kinda known about Tony from Nat’s undercover mission, but Bruce was new. Nat glanced at him and tapped ‘later’ on his leg. Thor looked as bewildered as Steve. Tony gave them all a crooked smile while Bruce awkwardly patted Steve and Thor on the arm. “We’re fine, guys. Now, anyway.”

A spark of curiosity lit on Loki’s bond before he resolutely smothered it, keeping his eye on the judges. Mimir and Hoenir were having a muted conversation while the other three waited patiently, or impatiently in the case of Lady Eir. Finally, the two wizards looked at them. “We have no further questions,” Hoenir told Forseti. Forseti nodded and turned to Lady Eir and Sege. Lady Eir shook her head sharply. Sege was analyzing something below her feet. Clint was becoming vaguely impressed with Forseti’s patience, because he waited in silence far longer than Clint would have. Tony was starting to fidget. Lade Eir had long since started tapping her foot. Eventually, Sege blinked herself back to the auditorium and noticed Forseti—the whole auditorium, really—looking at her. “Do you have any final questions, _Völva_ Sege?” Forseti asked. 

Sege turned and studied Loki. He returned her stare but his bond was curling around the edges with unease. She shook her head. “No.” The unease slipped away with a trickle of relief. 

Forseti turned to the auditorium. “Does the Althing have any further questions for the accused?”

A scuffle broke out on the very topmost tier. People craned their necks around, trying to catch a glimpse. Whoever had gotten into a fight must have taken it outside as the sounds quickly died off, punctuated by a muted, solid-sounding thud. No one said anything. 

Forseti stood. “I then declare the investigative period of the trial of Loki of Jotunheim concluded. The Grand Council will withdraw to deliberate. Its verdict will be presented for the Althing’s ratification tomorrow.” He rapped the staff on the floor, returning the lighting to normal. The judges slowly filed out as guards stepped forward to unchain Loki from the truth spell and haul him away. 

Clint withdrew his hand from Frigga’s with a brief pat of thank you and went after them.

The guards at the door didn’t try to stop him this time, so he watched with crossed arms as Loki was walked back into his cell and the chains were ponderously removed. Loki ignored him until the guards left, then looked over with a long sigh. “What do you want, Barton?”

“I’d like to know what you’re hiding.”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“That is the largest crap of bull I’ve ever heard. There’s something you didn’t want to say in front of the judges, and I want to know what it is.”

Loki sat and slumped over his knees, bond swirling sluggishly with the ever-present exhaustion. “Can’t you just go away?”

“No.”

“Why bloody not?” Loki demanded, bond beginning to tinge with desperation. “Why can you not just _leave it alone?”_

Clint stepped forward and pressed his face close to the energy field. “You want to know why? Because you killed him. You killed the first person who believed in me, the first who meant it when he said I was capable of greater things, of _good_ things. You fucking killed him because of information I gave you, and I should fucking hate you, I _want_ to fucking hate you, but then you go and get yourself soulbonded to me and it’s like Natasha all over again and _why did you have to go and make it complicated?”_

Loki stared at him for a moment, then rallied himself. “We have been over this, little hawk. The Norns will play what games they choose, and I have absolutely no say in the matter.”

“Fuck your Norns,” Clint growled maturedly. 

“Why do you even care?” Loki demanded. “The Althing will demand my death for treasonous acts, and none of this will be your problem anymore. All you have to do is be patient.”

“Why do I care, he asks. Well, gee, maybe because I’m not a racist bigot? I don’t have any fucking problem with your blue skin—you’re an alien, your skin can be any color you want, it will still be weird—and my brother let me down too.”

Loki looked at him with wide eyes, blond still. Clint sighed. Might as well go the full nine yards. He leaned his weight against the far wall of the corridor and glowered at the floor. 

“My brother was the only family I had left and the only one that cared through the endless string of foster homes. I loved his ass and looked up to him like he was the golden example of humanity. Sound familiar?”

Loki made no response.

“Of course, no one’s that perfect. It turned out one of my mentors at the circus was embezzling. When I caught him, he offered to give me a cut. I refused. Barney was…” he trailed off, thinking of clattering cups and slammed doors. He shook his head. “He was furious. He left, and everything I thought I knew got hit upside the head and pushed through a meat grinder. I always knew Swordsman wasn’t a great person, but who cares, lots of people at the circus flirted with the far side of legality, but then he had to go and steal from those same people who were barely making ends meet. And Barney _agreed_ with him. 

“So I left too. I’d lost two of the most important people in my life, and Trickshot hated the fact that I could outshoot him. He kept me around because I made him more money, but he resented the hell out of my existence. There wasn’t any reason to stay.”

Loki’s bond couldn’t help itself. “What did you do?”

Clint’s mouth crooked. “Became a hitman. What can I say, the only things I was good for were manual labor and hitting a target. Even manual labor requires some form of papers these days unless you want to duck the law entirely, and if I was going to do that, I might as well use the skills I’d made my fingers bleed to acquire. And what did it matter? There was no such thing as a good person. We were all fucked up greedy bastards only out for ourselves one way or another and the world wouldn’t care if there were one or two less.

“I didn’t think Phil was any different at first. He fucking shot me, after all. Hell of a recruitment method. _I_ didn’t need to shoot Nat to bring her in. _I_ talked to her like a civilized human being. But he visited me in medical, and got himself assigned as my handler, and always made a point to talk to me off duty. He’s the one that got me to see things differently. Realize that just because people did bad things didn’t mean they couldn’t have good inside somewhere. It took a year or three, but he did.”

Loki rolled his eyes hard. “And I suppose you’re trying to see the good in me. Been talking to Sigyn, have you? Let me assure you that it’s not there.”

Clint squinted at him. “You know we’re bonded, right? I can tell when you’re lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Oh come on,” Clint groused. “You’re the God of _Lies_. Denial is a type of lying.”

“Allow me to lay it out for you, Barton. I did exactly to you what I want Thanos’ skin as a rug for doing to me. I molded your mind to my wishes. I violated your very soul. I had you kill fellow agents and divulge all their secrets. That makes me callous and a hypocrite. I see nothing wrong with attempted genocide to win the favor of my adopted parent. That makes me cruel and self-centered.”

“And the fact that you’re even listing it indicates otherwise.”

Loki’s façade broke long enough for him to dump his head into his hands and growl, “Norns, you are _infuriating.”_

“What are soulmates for.”

Loki glared at him through his fingers. Clint smiled winningly back then sobered. “Don’t mistake me though. I haven’t forgiven you for all that. You did do it, and it was fucking _horrid._ You’re supposed to be the villain in this story. You’re supposed to be the one person I get to hate with extreme and unrelenting prejudice and I’m fucking _pissed_ about this whole situation.”

“And again, _why do you care?_ I wouldn’t.”

“Did my little story time tell you nothing?” Clint demanded. “You’re basically me pre-Phil. That’s why we have a fucking soulbond. Because I _get it.”_

“That doesn’t mean you have to care!” Loki yelled back. “Family betray each other all the time. Why should shield-mates be any different? Particularly after all the things I did to you and had you do. Requiring compassion and forgiveness at such an intimate level after that is _ludicrous.”_

“You’re right, it is, and I’m nowhere near it. That said, I fucking _refuse_ to be anything less than the man Phil thought I could be. So here’s what’s going to happen, buttercup: I’m going to be your Phil.”

Loki opened his mouth to retort on reflex then stared at him, bond completely flabbergasted. Clint felt quite smug about that. “What?”

“You’re not dying. Not until I say so.”

“Whatever Sigyn or Thor may have told you, the Althing doesn’t work like that.”

“Watch me.” Clint stomped to the door and yanked it open. “One of you take me to the Council,” he told the guards outside. “I’ve a bone to pick with them.”

“The Grand Council has gone into seclusion—”

“I didn’t ask your opinion. Either show me the way or I’ll find someone who will.”

The guard who hadn’t spoken shrugged at the other and gestured for Clint to follow. He didn’t lead him far, just up a few stairs and around the corner. Clint didn’t wait for the guard to knock; he just pushed the door open and strode right on in. 

“You can’t kill him,” he told the judges seated around a table full of paper and food.

Hoenir blinked placidly at him. “And why is that?”

“Cause it’s what he wants and it’s not a punishment if it’s what he wants. He’s been aiming for it this whole time. No one else antagonizes the jury unless they’re hoping for the worst possible outcome.” Clint placed his feet shoulder-width apart and settled on his heels. “Give him to me. Give me custody, I don’t care how, banishment, community service, whatever you’ve got to do, but I want him. I want to make him live and figure his shit out.”

“On Midgard?” Mimir inquired.

“Obviously.”

“Is that wise?” Lady Eir demanded. “You’ll be placing him in the vicinity of nearly all of his Midgardian victims. That is not really appropriate for either party.”

“Maybe,” Clint conceded. “Maybe not. Either way, it’ll be more productive than leaving him on Asgard. That auditorium’s had a hate-boner for him for centuries by the looks of it. How is placing him at the mercy of that ‘appropriate’?”

“As his shield-mate, Agent Barton, we will take your suggestion under advisement,” Forseti said. “Now if you will be so kind as to leave.”

Clint exhaled, spun on his heel, and walked out. He’d made his case. Now it was just a matter of waiting. 

He was halfway to their guestrooms when he realized Loki had distracted him from getting any sort of answer to his question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the chapter I’ve been wanting to write for a year and a half! I’m going to repeat that I haven’t read the comics, and if something doesn’t match up with either that or MCU: poetic license. It’s an AU. Also, if I fall into any circus stereotypes, I apologize.


End file.
